keyboard preferences help should mention CJK setup

[Dan O'Huiginn]

For a user trying to set up input of CJK text, a natural place to start looking is system-> preferences -> keyboard. They will see no CJK layouts available - but it isn't clear why, either from the app or from the help (Configuring your desktop > hardware -> keyboard preferences). It would be good to update the documentation here, so it points to whatever information there is on setting up input methods for CJK.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

It looks like we don't have any information on this topic. I've found some incomplete information here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM and on the pages linked there; but frankly I don't think any member of the team knows enough about this topic to useful add something to the system documentation.

I understood that these input methods should work automatically with recent versions of Ubuntu.

I'm not really sure what to do about this bug!

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

In 8.04, checking the "Enable support to enter complex characters" check button in System->Administration->Language Support after selecting the language support required will install CJK input where CJK isn't the login language.

It drops in the Firefox locale too so its just a question of using <CTRL><SPACE> to switch IME input methods.

I think that an additional page in the system docs, perhaps under "Customizing Your Desktop" may be a good place to put this information.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

If the input methods are working properly for users who specify a relevant language during the install, I don't think the help needs to mention it - the use case where a user installs with a non-CJK input language and then wishes to add one is relatively rare, I would think.

If it's thought that it would be helpful to have a page or further information about the "Enable support to enter complex characters" feature, it strikes me that this is a keyboard configuration issue, so should be added to the keyboard configuration section in the Gnome user guide. Or am I misunderstanding the feature?

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

I take your point and the keyboard configuration section would seem sensible but there a lot of people (like me, lol) who are learning a CJK language and although use English as a primary login language (I'd be lost if I had to do anything technical in hiragana or katakana).

There is also the aside that this is how it is done in Windows too - from adding "Asian language support" in Languages under the control panel, so those migrating from Windows may look here. In fact there is an Ubuntu Brainstorm suggestion here (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/2203/) .

I agree that this may be a less common situation but I think from checking the forums, linuxquestions and Google that it seems to be quite requested, yet seldom answered well.

Perhaps a we might create a Wiki page for the time being and monitoring how much it is referenced?

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Hi,

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Dougie Richardson
<email address hidden> wrote:
> I take your point and the keyboard configuration section would seem
> sensible but there a lot of people (like me, lol) who are learning a CJK
> language and although use English as a primary login language (I'd be
> lost if I had to do anything technical in hiragana or katakana).

Ok, so maybe there are enough people who want to know how to do this
to make it worthwhile documenting it in the system help. I'm not quite
clear on what you are saying though - are you saying that it can be
documented in the keyboard configuration section, or not?

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 10:36 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> Ok, so maybe there are enough people who want to know how to do this
> to make it worthwhile documenting it in the system help. I'm not quite
> clear on what you are saying though - are you saying that it can be
> documented in the keyboard configuration section, or not?

No, I think it should be in the system help as a separate topic.

Cheers,
--
Dougie Richardson (http://lynxworks.eu)

"Well, then, " the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry,
and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and
wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Hi

On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 1:31 PM, Dougie Richardson
<email address hidden> wrote:
> No, I think it should be in the system help as a separate topic.

I think that would be really odd - the aim of the topics in the system
help are to separate out different tasks that a user might do, such as
"internet", "music", or whatever. My understanding is that CJK is just
an aspect of input that works out of the box for the majority of those
who use it, so I don't really understand how it could be significant
enough to merit its own topic.

Can you explain what your thinking is? Why is this something more than
simply an aspect of keyboard configuration?

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 13:51 +0000, Matthew East wrote:
> I think that would be really odd - the aim of the topics in the system
> help are to separate out different tasks that a user might do, such as
> "internet", "music", or whatever. My understanding is that CJK is just
> an aspect of input that works out of the box for the majority of those
> who use it, so I don't really understand how it could be significant
> enough to merit its own topic.

That's fair enough, in which case perhaps just a wiki page would do the
trick.

> Can you explain what your thinking is? Why is this something more than
> simply an aspect of keyboard configuration?

Simply that looking at the current topics it is not obvious as to where
one would start to look. Don't get me wrong I don't want to start adding
extra topics, I just can't see where we would add this.

The other option is to get in touch with whoever does the "Language
Support" option and get them to add a help button.

Cheers, for putting up with my fuzzy thinking, lol

--
Dougie Richardson (http://lynxworks.eu)

"Well, then, " the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry,
and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and
wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

Changing this to wishlist for the time being, as there hasn't been a lot of interest in CJK documentation.

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

Please do not reassign my bugs to yourself Juan. If you feel it is taking me too long to address something, I suggest bringing it up on the team's mailing list.

[Dougie Richardson (dougierichardson)]

CJK supporthas been much improved and integrated for a while now - from System->Administration->Language Support. This is a significant change and should have attention drawn to it from somewhere, I'm not sure where though.

I've already documented the new procedure.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Moving bug as per new ubuntu-doc bug policy.

[anatoly techtonik (techtonik)]

So, Fix Released?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2014-09-04 10:27, anatoly techtonik wrote:
> So, Fix Released?

I'd say so.

https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-help/keyboard-layouts.html