Re: [tlug] [IME] :P Which IME does everyone use?

[Bart Mathias <mathias@example.com>]

burlingk@example.com wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: tlug-bounces@example.com [mailto:tlug-bounces@example.com Behalf Of
> > Scott Robbins
> > Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2007 9:30 AM
> > To: Tokyo Linux Users Group
> > Subject: Re: [tlug] [IME] :P Which IME does everyone use?
> >
> >
> > However in an alpha of the latest Ubuntu (something Gibbon) I did the
> > following. 
> >
> > In .bashrc
> >
> > export XMODIFIERS='@im=SCIM'
> > export LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8
>
> That was part of what I was complaining about.
> For me, doing that is not so hard, but for the
> average user, who doesn't know an RC file from
> an email...  Not so good ^^;

That describes me, and my question is probably far too broad to expect 
an answer for here, but the subject matter has lured me in.

Normally (simply because I know no better) I start a program in which I 
hope to type Japanese with

bart@example.com:~$ LANG=ja_JP XMODIFIERS=@example.com <program-name> &

99% of the time <program-name> is "mozilla-thunderbird" (Debian PPC 
version, 2.4.26).  I have always done that so recently that I simply 
scroll up to it in Konsole.

Then when I first want to type Japanese, I ALT^F2 the command "kinput2 
-canna -xim."

A few months ago I thought it would be nice if I could type Korean too. 
 Discussion in another group led me to install SCIM and Anthy.

That enabled me to somewhat painfully enter Korean (with a hankul-mapped 
keyboard in the background so I could see what keys to press), but 
Japanese turned out to be an equal pain.  So far as I can tell, to enter 
kana, I have to type, e.g., "k, a, <SP>, n, a, <SP>," where I'm used to 
what seems a simpler "k, a, n, a, <RET>" with Kinput.  I hadn't felt the 
need to enter Korean for months, so I theoretically shouldn't even 
remember how to start the SCIM/Anthy business.

I chanced to start Thunderbird from Konsole a few days ago without the 
prefix.  Lo and also behold!  Up comes
----------------------------------------------------------------
bart@example.com:~$ selected locale: en-US
Launching a SCIM daemon with Socket FrontEnd...
DOUBLE-CLICK: 250 --> -1 THRESHOLD: 8 --> -1 GTK Panel of SCIM 1.0.2

Starting as daemon ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
and there's the odd little icon in the panel I can click on to type my 
choice of Japanese, Korean, or English.

Puzzle #1 for me:  Why does this happen, and why doesn't it happen with 
LANG=ja_JP XMODIFIERS=@example.com on the front of the command (I would 
have thought I'd need something similar with maybe "anthy" replacing 
"kinput2")?

I have no plain .bashrc at all.  I did find a /root/.bashrc and an 
/etc/bash.bashrc, but neither of them seem to have anything to do with 
the matter.

Maybe I'll just skip puzzle #2 through #n for now.

Bart Mathias