Comment 9 for bug 33763

Revision history for this message
Ming Hua (minghua) wrote : Re: [Bug 33763] scim-hangul: Add im-switch support

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 12:27:38PM -0000, atie wrote:
>
> Comment:
> As far as I know "im-switch -s" should run by user and it creates a link
> for IM to ~/.xinput.d/ko_KR so it's same as current situation.

No, im-switch can be run by both root (to set the system configuration)
or by user (to set the user-specific configuration). It's true that it
creates a symlink in ~/.xinput.d/, but the target of the symlink can be
changed by im-switch, therefore the user can set his/her favorite input
method different than the distro/system default.

My reading of the Debian im-switch package's spec [1] tells me
"im-switch -s" is the way people are supposed to change their preferred
input method in situations like this. And I did the test myself, see
the attached log, it seems to be working very well.

I've lowered the priority to 45 and 40, and have the new debdiff ready.
Please test this new patch as well (although the change is small and I
don't expect any new problems), especially im-switch to change between
nabi and scim-hangul. If it works as expected, I'll try to get an
upload.

This priority setting is the best I know inside im-switch framework to
set two different input methods. I actually don't know what Atie's
expectation was in his original comments. Atie, do you mean an input
method should be set to default when it's installed (I doubt that's a
good idea, actually)? And of course if anyone can propose a better way
to deal with two different input methods, I'll be happen to change my
patch.

1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/06/msg00211.html

> It is very tough to say what is a consensus of opinion for Korean IMs.
> In my opinion, if priority needs to be set, scim should be default IM
> since it's in main now and it works for CJK. :)

No, when I was saying the popular one should have higher priority, I was
assuming both input methods would be installed by user manually. Now
that scim-hangul is installed by default, it should have a _lower_
priority, because if user does't do anything else, he/she would have
scim. If he/she spends extra efforts to install nabi when there is
already scim, we should assume he/she want to use nabi instead.
Therefore nabi will have higher priority.

> FYI, one developer maintains nabi, imhangul and scim-hangul for Korean
> IMs so he gives us same quality though.

Thanks for this info, however I believe the quality will not affect the
priority setting, new user friendliness is probably a bigger factor (new
user won't know how to set to a different IM, so the default one should
be the most friendly one to new users). But now scim-hangul is
installed by default, this is irrelevant in my opinion.

Comments?

Ming
2006.03.05

(system configuration by root)

# im-switch -z ko_KR -l
xinput-ko_KR - status is auto.
 link currently points to nabi
scim-hangul_scim - priority 45
scim-hangul_xim - priority 40
nabi - priority 50
Current `best' version is nabi.

# ls -l /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 2006-03-05 13:24 /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR -> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/nabi

# im-switch -z ko_KR -s scim-hangul_scim
Using `/etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim-hangul_scim' to provide `xinput-ko_KR'.

# ls -l /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 2006-03-05 13:27 /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR -> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim-hangul_scim

# im-switch -z ko_KR -a
# ls -l /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 2006-03-05 13:28 /etc/alternatives/xinput-ko_KR -> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/nabi

(now try user configurations)

$ cd
$ ls .xinput.d
ls: .xinput.d: No such file or directory

$ im-switch -z ko_KR -s scim-hangul_xim
$ ls -l .xinput.d/ko_KR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 minghua users 39 2006-03-05 13:30 .xinput.d/ko_KR -> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/scim-hangul_xim

$ im-switch -z ko_KR -s nabi
$ ls -l .xinput.d/ko_KR
lrwxrwxrwx 1 minghua users 28 2006-03-05 13:32 .xinput.d/ko_KR -> /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/nabi