Ubuntu 13.10 has no way to change individual input method settings

Bug #1241309 reported by Explorer09
156
This bug affects 30 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gnome-control-center (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
High
Unassigned
ibus (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
High
Unassigned
indicator-keyboard (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
High
Unassigned

Bug Description

This is a UI problem that happens in Ubuntu 13.10, with the default (Unity) desktop.

I live in Taiwan and use Chinese input methods. Other languages may differ.

This is how I can change the individual settings of input methods in the old Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
(1) With iBus enabled, click on the "keyboard" icon on the upper right corner of the screen. Then click "Preferences".
(2) Set the "Show language panel" option to "Always".
(3) The "language panel" will appear somewhere on the screen, click on the "Preferences" icon.
(4) Then I can set the options of the current input method, such as "Bopomofo" in the screenshot below.
(screenshot:)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jwk28fap0ef7zi7/ubuntu-ime-individual-settings-1.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mrb1qfgx4u37rv/ubuntu-ime-individual-settings-2.png

The procedure above can still work until Ubuntu 13.10.

In Ubuntu 13.10, I don't see any way to show the setting of that "Bopomofo" input method, or "Chewing", or whatever.
And there is no option to "Show language panel" either.
(screenshot:)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/03i3duwmu8wc4mk/ubuntu-ime-individual-settings-3.png

This problem is making me inconvenient to use. I hope this could be fixed soon.

Tags: saucy
Explorer09 (explorer09)
tags: added: saucy
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

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

Changed in ibus (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Shih-Yuan Lee (fourdollars) wrote :

Have you tried Shift+Super+Space?

Revision history for this message
Explorer09 (explorer09) wrote :

@Shih-Yuan Lee,
Super+Space and Shift+Super+Space cycle between different input sources. This isn't what I want. I want to bring up the preference window so I can set things for Chewing, Pinyin, or Zhuyin or so on.

Revision history for this message
Explorer09 (explorer09) wrote :

For those people who don't understand this bug, try finding and opening this settings window in Ubuntu 13.10.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bk6uop4yq25znmx/ubuntu-ime-individual-settings-4.png
This settings window is for Chewing (ibus-chewing), in which you can change how you select characters or what keyboard layout (standard or Eten) Chewing should use.

給那些還不太懂這個bug是什麼意思的人:請你們試著在Ubuntu 13.10上面開出這個視窗
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bk6uop4yq25znmx/ubuntu-ime-individual-settings-4.png
這是新酷音的設定視窗,你可以在上面改一些選字及鍵盤相關的設定。(鍵盤指的是要用標準的配置還是倚天還是其它)

Related webpage (相關網頁):
http://apexu.com/apexu/tw/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=16

Revision history for this message
ChangZhuo Chen (陳昌倬) (czchen) wrote :

You can modify ibus-chewing configuration via dconf-editor. The settings are stored in /desktop/ibus/engine/chewing.

Revision history for this message
Kuangting Liu (168-l) wrote :

How do you get /desktop/ibus/engine/chewing? From dconf-editor, I only see "general" and "panel" under desktop->ibus.

Revision history for this message
ChangZhuo Chen (陳昌倬) (czchen) wrote :

Not sure why I have /desktop/ibus/engine/chewing, but I guess it is because I changed chewing setting in gnome-shell before. You can try to install gnome-shell first, and in chewing mode, left click chewing icon, select settings, changing something and save it. After doing so, you can use dconf-editor to check if the entry is created.

Revision history for this message
Kuangting Liu (168-l) wrote :

Thanks for the reply. Acutally I am using gnome-shell, but there is no chewing icon. And that's the whole idea behind this bug report - there is no chewing icon in 13.10 to allow you to change settings.

Revision history for this message
Shih-Yuan Lee (fourdollars) wrote :

Try the following commands:

$ sudo gsettings-schema-convert --gconf --xml --schema-id 'desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing' --output /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml /usr/share/gconf/schemas/ibus-chewing.schemas
$ sudo sed -e 's/\(.key name=.\)/\L\1/g' /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml
$ sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

Revision history for this message
Shih-Yuan Lee (fourdollars) wrote :

Fix some typo

$ sudo gsettings-schema-convert --gconf --xml --schema-id 'desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing' --output /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml /usr/share/gconf/schemas/ibus-chewing.schemas
$ sudo sed -e 's/\(.*key name=.*\)/\L\1/g' /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml
$ sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

Revision history for this message
Shih-Yuan Lee (fourdollars) wrote :

Fix some typo again

$ sudo gsettings-schema-convert --gconf --xml --schema-id 'desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing' --output /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml /usr/share/gconf/schemas/ibus-chewing.schemas
$ sudo sed -i 's/\(.*key name=.*\)/\L\1/g' /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/desktop.ibus.engine.Chewing.gschema.xml
$ sudo glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

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

Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in indicator-keyboard (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Bill Yan (lpeagle) wrote :

It also affects me. Hoping somebody to fix it soon.

Revision history for this message
Mitch (mitch-h) wrote :

I was typing and via the keyboard somehow switched the input from simplified to traditional. When I switched to English and back to Chinese it was reset to simplified. Is anyone else aware of how to switch between simplified and traditional with the keyboard? I was kind of mashing the keys so I haven't been able to re-create it. I feel like it had something to do with control, shift and S or maybe ".

Here is what I typed when it happened: “Nightly Specials”S應該是大字

As you can see, after the "S it was in traditional and I was really happy, but now I'm back to simplified :-/

Revision history for this message
Tomas Mazak (wigwam) wrote :

Please please do fix this soon! I This is really serious bug making chinese input really troublesome!

Revision history for this message
David Shih (daveshih) wrote :

I discovered how to switch the keyboard layout and other preferences in Ubuntu 13.10.

Here is what I did -
1. sudo apt-get install ibus-clutter ibus-qt4 (not sure if this step is necessary, but I noticed these two were missing with my Ubuntu 13.10 install, even after enabling ibus-chewing)
2. log out and log back in using gnome-shell (granted not everyone installs gnome-shell, but I did and it's the only way I found so far)
3. you should see input method icon on top gnome panel, next to speaker icon
4. click on input method icon and select another method (e.g. bopomofo or chewing)
5. click on the same input method icon again and you'll see Preference (for bopomofo) and Settings (for Chewing) !!!!
From what I can tell, you can also do the same for bopomofo without gnome-shell, by executing the following command -
python /usr/share/ibus-pinyin/setup/main.py bopomofo

Hope this helps,

David

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

@David: can't you just do that?

- run ibus-setup
- go to the second tab
- select the im you want
- click on "preferences"?

that should give you access to the preferences ... that's not the most user friendly thing but should be easier than installing another desktop environemtn

Revision history for this message
Kuangting Liu (168-l) wrote :

@Sebastien: Unfortunately, no. The "preferences" button is greyed out.

Revision history for this message
Elmaz Yu (elmazyu) wrote :

I can confirm David's #17 workaround is effective,
though I didn't install ibus-clutter and ibus-qt4,
but instead I installed gnome-shell.

@David:
Thank you for your sharing.

Revision history for this message
Titan Lien (titan-lien) wrote :

hello every one, base on this link
http://iloveubuntu.net/unity-7-updated-ubuntu-1310-new-indicator-keyboard

I just provide my another solution for your reference.

1. add a chinese input in text entry settings
2. change the switch hotkey from "super + space" to "alt + space"
3. then you could use "alt + space" to choose what you want to input.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BycSAkXO3P04MTRqS3o5VGxZQjg/edit?usp=sharing

Revision history for this message
Titan Lien (titan-lien) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Explorer09 (explorer09) wrote :

@titan-lien
No, you didn't understand this bug. Read comment #4 first. I'm not complaining about how to switch input sources, I am complaining that I can't CONFIGURE some particular input sources

Revision history for this message
James Wilde (james-wilde) wrote :

@Shih-Yuan Lee (fourdollars), I cut and pasted your commands but got the news that the file did not exist on the second command although I could see it and even vi edit it. On the third command I was told that the keyname variables were incorrectly formatted (should not start with a capital letter).

@David, the keyboard icon did not come up. I have a simple one showing Sv (for swedish) or En as alternative. The commands did not change anything, and I changed to Gnome (which I had installed). I normally use Cairo Dock on Gnome.

@
Titan Lien (titan-lien), your solution did not work for me either.

My solution: I have VirtualBox installed on this machine, so I am creating a 13-04 installation which I shall use for Mandarin till the bug is fixed. :(

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Castro (emmanuel-castro) wrote :

To make shorter the workaround proposed by David Shih #17.

Installation (once only):
  sudo apt-get install python-ibus

Running the setup tool for pinyin:
  cd /usr/share/ibus-pinyin/setup/
  python main.py

Running the setup tool for bopomofo:
  cd /usr/share/ibus-pinyin/setup/
  python main.py bopomofo

You might have to restart your session to make the changes effective.

Revision history for this message
Ma Hsiao-chun (mahsiaochun) wrote :

Dear ibus-chewing users:

Ubuntu's keyboard indicator doesn't provide a UI for config input engines currently, which is certainly a BIG problem.

However, ibus-chewing has an inherent problem that makes it impossible for other programs to invoke its config UI:
https://github.com/definite/ibus-chewing/issues/29

Revision history for this message
James Wilde (james-wilde) wrote :

I have additional problems after yesterday's (Jan 03, 2014) update. My default language has changed from UK English to Mandarin, and I haven't yet managed to get it to change back. The thread and a fuller description is here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2197541&p=12891025#post12891025

I thought I'd make this post here since there's a higher proportion of Mandarin users here than in the general forums. Anyone else had problems?

Revision history for this message
Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj) wrote :

@James: The display language is not related to this input method bug. Please feel free to file a separate language-selector bug about that.

Changed in indicator-keyboard (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in ibus (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Revision history for this message
Simon (simonjwiles) wrote :

i gave up using iBus and went back to SCIM several years ago now, because of this problem. i recently re-installed and thought I'd give iBus another go, but, alas, the same show-stopper still exists :(

Revision history for this message
larry (larry1chan) wrote :

Here is what i did to get around the missing floating panel problem on 13.10

cd /usr/share/ibus-pinyin/setup
python ./main.py
ibus restart

you may want to create a script and save it as a desktop shortcut.

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