Problems typing foreign languages?(was Arabic Fonts Problem)

[faneca]

This is a little off-topic, but hopefully it could help someone. We've just solved an issue with dead keys on the Spanish sub-forum, and I wanted to share it with non Spanish speakers. Some of us couldn't write accented letters (you know, vowels with acute -áéíóú-), but had no problems with e.g. "ñ" -n with tilde-. In fact, every dead key worked as a non-dead one: if you wanted to write an a with acute, you ended up with an acute alone followed by an a (á vs 'a), and so on.

The solution was to "clear" the variable XMODIFIERS before calling amsn. It had the value "@im=scim" because we use SCIM to write in other languages. Giving it a null value (or even "@im=" or "@im=none") did the trick. As an example, you can launch amsn from the console with the following command:

Code:

XMODIFIERS='' amsn

I would like to use SCIM within amsn (don't know how, maybe through XIM ??), but at least I left headaches behind ;-). If someone's interested, I'm using Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 - x86_64 with its "standard" packages (amsn v.0.96 2006/11/01, tcl/tk 8.4.14 -I think-, etc).

(BTW I noticed that writing such a character in a tcl/tk app, and then a few "normal" characters, when the program is idle -high system load situation, for example-, makes that character appear AFTER the rest of them, instead of its place. It is not very related to the above problem, but its strange how that subsystem treats dead keys anyway).

[iridium]

I have problems when try to type strange characters like:

'ñ' àèéòóú...........

I use two machines with ubuntu 7.04.

With the laptop amsn works perfectly. Not with the desktop.

The difference:


Desktop (it works   ):

Code:

francesc@francesc-desktop:~$ cat $LANG
cat: ca_ES.UTF-8: No such file or directory

Laptop  :twisted:

Code:

francesc@francesc-desktop:~$ cat $LANG
ca_ES.UTF-8@valencia

In the console I can change LANG variable and then amsn works

Code:

francesc@francesc-desktop:~$ LANG=ca_ES.UTF-8
francesc@francesc-desktop:~$ cat $LANG
cat: ca_ES.UTF-8: No such file or directory

The question is:

Can I change the LANG variable to the whole system (not just one opened terminal)?

Thanks,
Iridium

[kakaroto]

maybe use the 'locale' command, not sure if it's the right one.. or look in your gnome/kde configuration panel.. if not, search the net, if not, then ask in your distro's forums instead.

[faneca]

Can I change the LANG variable to the whole system (...) ?

Yes, you can. In Ubuntu, the file you should edit is /etc/default/locale (I think). While I don't think so, maybe you should reboot after the change just to be sure the whole system notices it.

BTW, I resolved all my problems with SCIM, but I did nothing! Not even update tcl/tk or scim, AFAIK :-/ . Tk apps started to work with scim just by themselves, although now dead keys don't work anymore when scim is deactivated (exactly the opposite case I had, I'm completely pointless about this). The good news, apart for beeing able to use scim, is that I no longer must tweak the environment for amsn, and also that there is a workaround to write in my native european language: install a scim input method for it (so now I have scim activated all the time, and just keep switching the input method). For the record, before this behavior, the gtk scim panel appeared in English, and now it is in my mother tongue.

I wonder if this helps someone, somehow.

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

I wonder if this helps someone, somehow.

Of course it does ! Well, I hope so... Can you please give your .xinitrc (or wherever there are) input method options (I mean XMODIFIERS, *_IMMODULE & cie) ?

[faneca]

Of course . Take a look at the last part of this message. I'd like to tell a few things first, though.

I don't remember exactly all the steps I made... just googled a lot and read some interesting things here and there. I'm pretty sure, however, that I didn't use im-switch (I've never installed it), because I had the impression it wouldn't do very well what I wanted: using a Latin (Spanish, in fact) layout as my primary input method (both for Spanish and Galician), while being able to switch to Greek and Japanese im's (and maybe others). Possibly I was wrong about this at that time, but now I don't care because it works (well, at least always worked, and is working right now, in all the gtk apps). Also, I do remember tweaking my ~/scim/* files.

As a side note (this issue is getting funnier and funnier), a couple of days ago, Japanese stopped working again in Tk apps... and what makes it even more interesting: now it fails in a completely different fashion. For instance, the Greek and Spanish input methods are happier than ever , but while Japanese seems to work at first glance (i.e. you can switch input methods while the conversation window is focused, and you can see the embedded "preedit string" window), when it comes to insert the characters (Kanji and such) into the text, it puts only blanks (and Windows MSN users told me they see square characters when I tried to send them). Also, if I try and paste a Japanese string into the window (from another app), it inserts something like "\233\321\423\221\113" (well, this are not the correct numbers, but that's not the point). All of this worked flawlessly, say, last week. AND, AGAIN, I DON'T REMEMBER UPDATING ANY PACKAGES RELATED TO SCIM OR TCL/TK.  dO_ob  Funny, funny, damn funny  X^D.

Well, as I said in a previous message, I'm sitting on an Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) system. So here you have some interesting files:


/etc/X11/Xsession.d/74custom-scim_startup (I created this one, so this vars are set up system-wide for X; maybe you'd prefer to use .xinitrc or whatever):

Code:

export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"
export GTK_IM_MODULE="scim"
export XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"
export QT_IM_MODULE="scim"

Somewhere in ~/.gnome2/session, I have:

Code:

(...)
18,RestartCommand=scim -d
(...)

Here, '18' is circumstantial. (If I'm right, this was not done by hand-editing, but using the "System | Preferences | Sessions" applet in the Gnome Ubuntu menu to create a new "start application" entry -- the command to put there, of course, is "scim -d").


~/.scim/global

Code:

/DefaultKeyboardLayout = Spanish
(...)

~/.scim/config

Code:

/DefaultIMEngineFactory/C = c6bebc27-6324-4b77-8ad4-6d41dcaf2e08
/DefaultIMEngineFactory/es_ES = c6bebc27-6324-4b77-8ad4-6d41dcaf2e08
/DefaultIMEngineFactory/gl_ES = c6bebc27-6324-4b77-8ad4-6d41dcaf2e08
/FrontEnd/ChangeFactoryGlobally = true
/FrontEnd/IMOpenedByDefault = true
/FrontEnd/OnTheSpot = true
/FrontEnd/SharedInputMethod = true
/FrontEnd/Socket/ConfigReadOnly = false
/FrontEnd/Socket/MaxClients = 512
/FrontEnd/X11/BrokenWchar = true
/FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic = true
/FrontEnd/X11/OnTheSpot = true
/FrontEnd/X11/ServerName = SCIM
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/NextFactory = Hyper+Scroll_Lock
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/Off =
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/On =
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/PreviousFactory = Shift+Hyper+Scroll_Lock
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/ShowFactoryMenu = Alt+Hyper+Scroll_Lock
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/Trigger = Zenkaku_Hankaku,Hangul,Control+Hyper+Scroll_Lock
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/ValidKeyMask = Shift+Control+Alt+CapsLock+Meta+Super+Hyper
/Hotkeys/IMEngine/6e029d75-ef65-42a8-848e-332e63d70f9c = Control+Alt+Hyper+l
/Hotkeys/IMEngine/List = 6e029d75-ef65-42a8-848e-332e63d70f9c
(...)
/Panel/Gtk/Color/ActiveBackground = light sky blue
/Panel/Gtk/Color/ActiveText = black
/Panel/Gtk/Color/NormalBackground = #F7F3F7
/Panel/Gtk/Color/NormalText = black
/Panel/Gtk/DefaultSticked = false
/Panel/Gtk/Font = default
/Panel/Gtk/LookupTableEmbedded = true
/Panel/Gtk/LookupTableVertical = true
/Panel/Gtk/ShowStatusBox = false
/Panel/Gtk/ShowTrayIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/AlwaysHidden = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/AlwaysShow = false
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/AutoSnap = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/HideTimeout = 2
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/POS_X = -1
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/POS_Y = -1
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowFactoryIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowFactoryName = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowHelpIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowMenuIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowPropertyLabel = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowSetupIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowStickIcon = true
/UpdateTimeStamp = 1188953827:114437

Most of this was automatically created by scim the first time it was launched (launch it without -d switch from command line, then interrupt with Ctrl-C), but I think I tweaked some things around the first lines. I put here everything that can be of some interest, and wiped out the boring lines . Not sure about what that "c6bebc27-6324-4b77-8ad4-6d41dcaf2e08" thing may mean, but it seems to me that it is some kind of reference to the Spanish keyboard layout.


Finally, my  /etc/default/locale

Code:

LANG="gl_ES.UTF-8"
LANGUAGE="gl_ES:gl:es_ES:es:en_US:en_GB:en"

Finally, please note that I did some tests, changing "scim -d" to "scim -f X11 -d" everywhere, and back again.

If you need more information, don't hesitate to ask.

Faneca.

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

Thanks. Seeing your stuff I thought that it was the XIM_PROGRAM line that was missing (I had only a XIM_MODULE) but... no. Or not only...

Can you please tell me which versions of amsn and tcl/tk you are using ?

Edit : No way... I cannot even switch the input method while aMSN is on top.  :cry:
Edit2 : Well, I think I remember that I have to use tcl/tk 8.5, but I reinstalled 8.4 this morning for the 0.97RC1 version of aMSN from community's repo (archlinux)... I'll try to reinstall svn version, but (can you still tell which versions you are using please).

[faneca]

(Mmmmm, XIM_MODULE... it sounds quite interesting, I'll google to give it a try, but anyway, what value do you have on it?)

This are the Feisty packages I've installed along with their versions:

Code:

tcl8.4:  8.4.14-0ubuntu1
tk8.4:   8.4.14-0ubuntu2

(I don't have any other tcl/tk versions on this machine. In fact, there's no higher version in the stable Ubuntu distribution)

Code:

amsn:  0.96+dfsg1-0ubuntu2

Code:

scim,
libscim8c2a,
scim-gtk-immodule,
scim-modules-socket:   1.4.4-7ubuntu1

scim-anthy:  1.2.1-1build1

anthy,
libanthy0:  7900-3build1

scim-m17n:  0.1.3-2

libm17n-0:  1.3.1-1.1
m17n-db:    1.3.1-1.build1

If you're courious, I'm using m17n to write classic Greek (you know, with diacritics and such) - it's sooo nice for writing mathematics (maybe I'll be using tex in the future, but right now I don't have the need) :-)

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

(Mmmmm, XIM_MODULE... it sounds quite interesting, I'll google to give it a try, but anyway, what value do you have on it?)

Don't bet on it... In fact I had these three lines and I'm quite sure they have almost no impact :

Code:

export XIM_MODULE=scim
export X_IM_MODULE=scim
export TK_IM_MODULE=scim

:lol:

This are the Feisty packages I've installed along with their versions:

Code:

tcl8.4:  8.4.14-0ubuntu1
tk8.4:   8.4.14-0ubuntu2

(I don't have any other tcl/tk versions on this machine. In fact, there's no higher version in the stable Ubuntu distribution)

Yes, in fact I was mistaking, scim support was implemented (or at least improved) since tcl/tk 8.4.13, according to the changelogs (I think I was confusing with anti-aliasing support).

Code:

amsn:  0.96+dfsg1-0ubuntu2

Mmh... 0.97RC1 here. Maybe a XXX* ? Unfortunately there is no easy way to downgrad a package on archlinux, so I have to install from source if y want to test 0.96... Anyway, I'll see if I have more chance this evening.
*[I don't remember how you call a a bug when it worked before and does not work anymore...  :oops: ]

If you're courious, I'm using m17n to write classic Greek (you know, with diacritics and such) - it's sooo nice for writing mathematics (maybe I'll be using tex in the future, but right now I don't have the need) :-)

I don't know if that's what you meant, but be aware that you can also type tex WITH scim.

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

Mmh... 0.97RC1 here. Maybe a XXX* ? Unfortunately there is no easy way to downgrad a package on archlinux, so I have to install from source if y want to test 0.96... Anyway, I'll see if I have more chance this evening.
*[I don't remember how you call a a bug when it worked before and does not work anymore...  :oops: ]

Tried the 0.96 one, doesn't help...  :cry:

[faneca]

Good news: I'm stupid

To be a little more explicit, those (stupid? ) Windows users made me think I was having trouble with scim when in fact I wasn't. Once another Windows user told me he was watching my kanji properly, I realized the only thing going wrong was *displaying* those characters on my system, i.e. I had a problem with fonts. Then, I just had to choose another font in the amsn config and the problem vanished. So scim was always working since I managed to get it working (I don't know if it was really me, or what had I done either :-/ , read my first post on this thread). BTW the copy&paste problem is still there, but only when I copy from the clipboard. When coping and pasting directly with the mouse, it goes like a charm. I believe this problem was always there waiting for me to notice.

What bothers me is not knowing how my xorg font configuration changed. I think it has to do more with xorg than with scim or tk or amsn, because I did not change tk or amsn config, and because running this command (to open tk with a text area window):

Code:

wish <(echo 'pack [text .t]') &

let me introduce kanji before, but now, with the same default font (at least it looks the same), kanji is not showing. Also, I'm sure I did not update the amsn/tk/scim packages, but I'm not so sure about gnome and xorg.

So where are we now?
1.- First, forget what I said about my "new" scim problem, in my last posts. Scim keeps working for me since it started working in tk apps for the first time.
2.- Skippy is still in trouble, although he seems to have taken the necessary steps. Has it something to do with distribution-customized packages? Don't know, but it's an idea I've just come into.

OK, I'll finish with some comments for you, Skip:
1.- You have respected case (scim vs SCIM) when assigning values to those env. vars, haven't you?
2.- When an ancient bug reappears it's called a regression, if I'm right

Please keep me informed of your progress. And request whatever you need

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

1) Given your advice, I tried to change "export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"" by "export XMODIFIERS="@im=scim"", but nothing new.

2) That's the word I was looking for. :-D

3) BTW, copy/past also works, that's just an input issue. I repeat, I can't even change scim method while in amsn, and just standard input works. I think this can help : I can't even put a "^" over a "e", it just gives "^e"...

[faneca]

1) Given your advice, I tried to change "export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"" by "export XMODIFIERS="@im=scim"", but nothing new.

In fact, although I'm unsure why, in that particular case it should be in capital letters (SCIM), while on the other variables should be in small ones (scim).

3) BTW, copy/past also works, that's just an input issue. I repeat, I can't even change scim method while in amsn, and just standard input works. I think this can help : I can't even put a "^" over a "e", it just gives "^e"...

Mmmm, this is new information, and I like it . I was exactly in the same case before (you can read mi first posts on this thread). Please, try and do something: open a terminal and launch amsn this way...

Code:

XMODIFIERS='' amsn

This will prevent tk from using any special input method. If you are lucky, it will let you write "combinations" (I don't know what to call it), i.e. pressing a dead key won't write it immediately but will combine it with the next character you type, by means of using your standard X keyboard layout. The bad news, if this is what happens to you too, is that I simply don't know what I did (if I ever did something) to fix it and start using scim normally with tk apps .

So please try that and come back to tell me what happens.

[Skippy le Grand Gourou]

If you are lucky, it will let you write "combinations"

Yes it does !

(I don't know what to call it)

I think "combinations" is ok, or just "accents"...

The bad news, if this is what happens to you too, is that I simply don't know what I did (if I ever did something) to fix it and start using scim normally with tk apps .

Ok, anyway that's a new way where to look. I'll try to google on this this afternoon or tomorrow (and maybe reread the topic from the beginning ).

Thanks.

[faneca]

I'll post two more files I missed last time. Looking at their modification times, I guess I've made something with the first one. Experiment and feed us back
EDIT: The 'something' I've made is changing the first line (it was " = en_US.UTF-8" before).

/etc/scim/global

Code:

/SupportedUnicodeLocales = gl_ES.UTF-8,es_ES.UTF-8,en_US.UTF-8,en_GB.UTF-8
/DefaultPanelProgram = scim-panel-gtk
/DefaultConfigModule = simple
/DefaultSocketFrontEndAddress = local:/tmp/scim-socket-frontend
/DefaultSocketIMEngineAddress = local:/tmp/scim-socket-frontend
/DefaultSocketConfigAddress = local:/tmp/scim-socket-frontend
/DefaultPanelSocketAddress = local:/tmp/scim-panel-socket
/DefaultHelperManagerSocketAddress = local:/tmp/scim-helper-manager-socket
/DefaultSocketTimeout = 5000

/etc/scim/config

Code:

# This file is encoded in UTF-8 encoding.
/FrontEnd/OnTheSpot = true
/FrontEnd/SharedInputMethod = true
/FrontEnd/ChangeFactoryGlobally = false
/FrontEnd/Socket/ConfigReadOnly = false
/FrontEnd/Socket/MaxClients = 512
/FrontEnd/X11/BrokenWchar = true
/FrontEnd/X11/Dynamic = false
/FrontEnd/X11/OnTheSpot = true
/FrontEnd/X11/ServerName = SCIM
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/NextFactory = Control+Alt+Down,Shift+Control+KeyRelease+Shift_L,Shift+Control+KeyRelease+Shift_R
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/PreviousFactory = Control+Alt+Up,Shift+Control+KeyRelease+Control_L,Shift+Control+KeyRelease+Control_R
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/ShowFactoryMenu = Control+Alt+Right
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/Trigger = Control+space,Shift+space,Zenkaku_Hankaku,Hangul
/Hotkeys/FrontEnd/ValidKeyMask = Shift+Control+Alt+CapsLock+Meta
/Panel/Gtk/Color/ActiveBackground = light sky blue
/Panel/Gtk/Color/ActiveText = black
/Panel/Gtk/Color/NormalBackground = #F7F3F7
/Panel/Gtk/Color/NormalText = black
/Panel/Gtk/Font = default
/Panel/Gtk/DefaultSticked = false
/Panel/Gtk/LookupTableEmbedded = true
/Panel/Gtk/LookupTableVertical = false
/Panel/Gtk/ShowStatusBox = false
/Panel/Gtk/ShowTrayIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/AlwaysShow = false
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/AutoSnap = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/HideTimeout = 2
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/POS_X = -1
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/POS_Y = -1
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowHelpIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowFactoryIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowFactoryName = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowSetupIcon = true
/Panel/Gtk/ToolBar/ShowStickIcon = true
/IMEngine/RawCode/Locales = default

I'm backtracking all my steps. If I discover something new, I'll post it here. Ah, and I think all my posts are on this page, so don't look back too far .