"When active" setting does not work in Lubuntu.

[Yuri I. Kornilov]

"When active" setting in "IBus Preferences" --> "Show language panel" does not work - the language panel is not shown when Input Method is active.
The only setting that works is "Always", which is very inconvenient - the panel is shown always, even when playing fullscreen video, viewing photos etc.
This bug appears only in Lubuntu, in usual Ubuntu this setting works OK.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: ibus 1.4.1-7ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-18.29-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-18-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Nov 12 19:59:46 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/share/ibus/setup/main.py
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-05-09 (186 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423.1)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.7
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ibus
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-11-04 (8 days ago)

[Jack Voo (vwh88)]

Fresh install of Lubuntu 12.10 x64. This problem also happen on my pc.

The only setting that will show the language panel is "Always"

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Rik Shaw (rik-shaw)]

I am copying here a comment I made on bug 1023165

I think these problems are all possibly related, as I have done the 2 below things and now have ibus working 100% in all applications, using the GUI to switch input methods (don't have to rely on the keyboard shortcut which was confusing for some of my users)

Here is my comment from the above bug (please don't take this as spam: main point is there is something amiss with the ubuntu customized version of ibus that is solved by reverting to the debian version!):

==============================================

I have had tons of ibus issues with certain programs as well (mainly in 12.04 but confirmed same problems in 12.10 and I would assume 13.04 as well but I have not tested yet).

BUT, I have solved all ibus problems (thanks to help from others) with some manual help, but need additional help from others to konw how to get these changes made known to the ubuntu devs.

     1. stock ibus for Ubuntu 12.04 (version 1.4.1-3ubuntu1) has several difficulties when using the system tray icon GUI to enable or disable keyboards. Sometimes it is not turned on properly even though the icon changes, sometimes it says "no input window" when there is indeed one, and other times it simply seems unresponsive: turning on the keyboard does nothing. This seems across "almost all applications". Same issues exist with the 12.10 ibus (different version, but still has the "ubuntu1" customization).

    Upstream versions of ibus from Debian Sid (version 1.4.1-7) solve all of these problems, and ibus seems to work very very well from the GUI menu with this update (another colleague packaged these for me for 32 and 64 bit: if anyone would like these I would be happy to send them. so please let me know). Note that this new version will not show up in the system tray (notification area) by default, however, so either run this command:

        gsettings set desktop.unity.panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

    or do the same with dconf-editor.

In summary for this first issue, it is WHATEVER Ubuntu is customizing that is causing a great headache for ibus users. Stock ibus from Debian works much better!

    2. Setting ibus as the "keyboard input method" in Language Support will cause unexpected behavior (even with the updated version of ibus from above). Particuarly in some apps (a custom mono based one I use is one example), the window ids of the various windows windows will be confused by ibus, thus resulting in the inablity of ibus to work consistently (again, from the GUI menu). If ibus is started manually, these problems do not appear. Only when started through Language Support. The workaround is to keep Language Support keyboard input method to "none" and have a startup application that runs "ibus-daemon -xrd" on login (can either be user level or system level in /etc/xdg/autostart).

[poikiloid (efelthauser)]

this is related to an issue at the ubuntu ibus level, affecting some environments, including Lubuntu. Supposedly it will be fixed in 13.04 automatically. (ref: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ibus/+bug/875435)

Until then, the solution is to install some missing dependencies:

use synaptic or whatever, and make sure you have all these installed, then, log out and back in:

libappindicator1
python-appindicator
python-gconf
python-glade2
python-pexpect