Re: [tlug] Lost Japanese Input in OpenOffice

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 01:12:13PM +0900, Dave M G wrote:
> TLUG,
> 
> This is getting really frustrating.
> 
> I read a web page where a guy described a problem similar to mine, and he said 
> he solved it by simply going to "System -> Administration -> Language Selector" 
> and selecting Japanese. Then Japanese input was magically available in 
> OpenOffice.

Was he also using uim?

> 
> But, after doing that and making sure that both English and Japanese were 
> enabled as available languages, I discovered that I *still* can't get any 
> Japanese input in OpenOffice.

I think you've mentioned this already, but we HAVE checked that in
openoffice, (as opposed to the system itself) that Japanese is enabled
right?  (In openoffice, it's tools=>options and in there is a language
menu.  

Usually, it stays during upgrades, but I believe that once or twice I've
had to re-enable it.  (As you've mentioned this is an upgrade and a
recent problem, I think we can assume you had it enabled in the past.)

> 
> 
> I already have UIM set up to handle Japanese input (which, again, works for 
> everything except OpenOffice), so this added interface noise is not helping.

Oh quit complaining, EVERYONE wants extra, unneeded icons on their
desktop.  :)  (Ok, just trying to lighten the mood.)


> 
> I've tried uninstalling SCIM, but it seems to not die without wanting to take 
> down Anthy and UIM with it. And I tried simply selecting "Hide Menu" from the 
> SCIM options, but it simply won't go away.

Could you do this?  Uninstall scim and let it take out whatever it wants
to take out, and then reinstall uim?  (We're dealing with two separate
problems here, of course--the openoffice one and the extra unneeded
icons one.)

Or, just for fun, uninstall uim and see if scim can work with
openoffice.  (A total stab in the dark, and unlikely to have success.)
Anyway, I would, to solve what seems to be the simpler problem,
uninstall scim, let it uninstall whatever it wants, and reinstall anthy
or uim-anthy if necessary. 

Another thing that might be worth trying, (although I have little hope
of it succeeding) is to try something like opening a uxterm (as opposed
to gnome-terminal.)  The reason to do this is that I've sometimes found
gnome-terminal didn't export variables the way I thought it would.  I
never tried to troubleshoot it, just switched to uxterm, so have no idea
if it was simply that install, or some other obscure thing. 

In this uxterm, reset your variables.  (I'm not sure how uim is set, but
hopefully, it's similar enough to scim so that the below will work.  If
not, I'm sure there must be others here using uim who can give the
correct syntax.  I'm also assuming Ubuntu's syntax will be ja_JP.utf8.
It might be something else, like UTF-8, utf-8, etc.)

export XMODIFIERS='whatever you put for uim in here--with scim it would
be @example.com='SCIM'
export LC_CTYE=ja_JP.utf8 (again, whatever Ubuntu uses for UTF-8.)
export GTK_IM_MODULE='whatever you would put for uim--with scim it's
'scim' in lower case.
export QT_IM_MODULE='whatever you use for uim'

Now, type, once again

uxterm

The reason for this is to make darn sure that these variables are
active in the terminal that you're using.  You could probably get away
with, in the first terminal we opened, doing XMODIFIERS=blah,
LC_CTYPE=blah, and ending it with the command to open openoffice, but
this way, we're SURE that it isn't a factor. 

Now, in this new uxterm, we doublecheck that we have our variables.

echo $LC_CTYPE

It should return ja_JP.utf8.

Assuming it does, now start openoffice from this terminal.  I don't know
the Ubuntu command for it, however, if you go to your gnome menu and
pull up the openoffice entry and right click on it, there should be a
proeprties menu.  That menu should show you the exact command. It might
ooffice or soffice or whatever.  Find out what it is and type it in that
uxterm. 

Once it opens, try again.  I don't have high hopes for it but it's worth
a shot, at least to eliminate various possibilities.

(I also think that if it brings no joy, it might be worth trying scim
and seeing if that, at least, will input Japanese.)

I suspect that most of this post will be a waste of your time, but
again, at least it will help in eliminating possible causes.


-- 

Scott Robbins

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