Re: tlug: kinput2 vs. egg [was: Yatta! XEmacs Japanese input with kinput2 via XIM]

[Steve Dunham <dunham@example.com>]

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tlug note from Steve Dunham <dunham@example.com>
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"Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com> writes:

> >>>>> "C" == C Oda <craig@example.com> writes:
> 
>     C> On Tue, 20 May 1997, Dennis McMurchy wrote:
> 
>     denismcm> Way to go Steve!  You did it!
> 
>     C> Yes, congratulations Stephen.  Another notch in the old
>     C> computer case.  :-) That looked like it required a bit of
>     C> effort.

> Actually, the hardest part was getting gdb and learning enough about
> it to get the stack trace.  Just before the thing bombed there was an
> unknown function in a weird place; this almost invariably means that
> something got passed a null pointer (one good reason to use Java; no
> pointers means no null pointers).  This told me where the relevant
> code was in Emacs.

> Then when I figured that out, I knew from previous experience that you 
> have to be careful about passing the areas to XOpenIC, and once I
> found those things were zero, it was that obvious thing to try.  Next
> I would give up :-)

Yeah, but you took the time to actually sit down and do it.  BTW, the
only guy currently doing XIM stuff on XEmacs is working with Slowaris
only (and he is working for Sun).

Could you submit your bug report to <xemacs-beta@example.com> or give
me permission to forward it?

> What is probably horrible about "kinput2 + your favorite back end" is
> the key-strokes.  Configuring keystrokes in Mule is relatively easy.
> You make a mode map and hang call-backs on the keystroke sequences.
> People use control and meta keys, not funky-shun keys and
> "control-kanji" (what's that on my US keyboard?)  Of course, Mule
> hackers are always playing with the keymaps.  So it's not surprising
> that tamago has a well-configured keyboard interface.

Actually, I have the "Menu" button on my MS keyboard mapped to
"Kanji".   The keyboard feels really nice, but the best feature is all
of the "buckey keys".  

   xmodmap -e "keycode 117 = Kanji"


> The XIM standard describes the conversion server as a "back-end".  But 
> this is because XIM only describes the interface between Xlib and the
> front-end; it doesn't care about the back-end.

>     C> Here is what I thought:

>     C> Front End Processors: kinput2, egg, uum, canuum

> Also xwnmo, specific to Wnn.

And "htt"  specific to solaris (it can talk to wnn, btw).

>     C> Japanese Input Method: canna, wnn

I'd call this a back end, a kana-kanji converter, or kanji server.

>     C> both FEP and JIM: skk (I've never tried this at all)

>     denismcm> I must be missing something (admittedly XIM is beyond my
>     denismcm> ken - does it really make the difference?).

> It doesn't make a difference as long as you want to stick to one
> Oriental language, or do everything in Mule.  But what are you going
> to do when Netscape really gives you Japanese/Chinese/etc in form and
> search input?  Are you going to blow off Netscape and use w3.el
> anyway?  Netscape will get those capabilities just as soon as XIM
> matures, you can bet on that.  But until there's a standard, I don't
> think there's enough market advantage in having a truly Japanese-
> capable browser in the Orient for Netscape to care.  I don't know
> anybody who uses MSIE for Japanese.  That doesn't mean it's worse than
> Netscape; it does mean it doesn't have a significant advantage.
> Japanese aren't doing that much form-filling yet, I guess.  Once
> there's a standard, though, everybody's gonna have it, and Netscape is 
> going to want to be first.

Netscape does have a Chinese guy working on I18N and L10N stuff. 


A good question to ask is what do people do who know Japanese and
Chinese.  XEmacs and Mule handle internal representation and display
(which XEmacs, IMHO, handles better) in a reasonable manner, but input 
is an issue.

I've even had problems using Japanese and German at the same
time.  I can't properly display by bookmarks file in Netscape. 


Steve
dunham@example.com
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