The scim-panel-kde Handbook

liucougar (liuspider) <liuspider@yahoo.com>

Revision 0.7.4 (April/30/2004)

KDE Frontend for SCIM and all-in-one configure GUI.


Table of Contents

1. Introduction
Features
Screenshots
2. Installation
How to obtain scim-panel-kde
Obtain scim-panel-kde source
Obtain pre-compiled scim-panel-kde
Requirements
Compilation and Installation
3. Using scim-panel-kde
Prerequisite
Start scim-panel-kde
Let scim-panel-kde do all the dirty work
Manually start scim-panel-kde
4. Questions, Answers, and Tips
5. Credits and License

Chapter 1. Introduction

scim-panel-kde is a GUI FrontEnd for SCIM under Linux systems optimized for KDE.

Features

KDE compliant: default settings are retrieved from KDE and the GUI honors the KDE/Qt global styles, including but not limited to the apperances and colors of widgets, icons;

Fully KDE integration: if you close your KDE when scim-panel-kde is still running, next time you start KDE, scim-panel-kde will get loaded automatically by KDE; After installation of scim-panel-kde, you can start it from "KDE Menu->Utilitis->scim-panel-kde"

Fully customizable: a setup GUI is shipped with scim-panel-kde, in which you can modify all settings not only about scim-panel-kde but also SCIM and most the settings will take efforts immediately without the hassle of restart (partially implemented, now only scim-panel-kde specific settings can be changed, please use scim-setup to change scim specific settings at present);

Based on modular concept: nearly everything you see are in seperate plugins, so you can configure which one you want. Not specified plugins would not get loaded at all to save your memery; some temporary functions such as configuration dialogs will be loaded on-demand, and will be unloaded automatically when they are no longer needed;

Object Oriented: like any other KDE/Qt application scim-panel-kde is written in C++

Screenshots



Screenshot of plugin Main Window (Main Toolbar)



Screenshot of plugin Input Window



Screenshot of plugin KDE System Tray Indicator



Screenshot of plugin Setup Window

Chapter 2. Installation

How to obtain scim-panel-kde

Obtain scim-panel-kde source

At present, you can get the latest scim-panel-kde from Sourceforge or Savannah.

(Hope this page will be moved to freedesktop)

Current version is 0.7.4, so it should be treated as beta-quality, but it is stable enough for everyday use.

Another download address.

Obtain pre-compiled scim-panel-kde

Debian packages (thanks to zliu[@linuxsir.org])

scim-panel-kde 0.7.4 debian package

  1. local download

  2. mirror

Requirements

SCIM >= 0.9.5, Qt? >= 3.2.0 and KDE >= 3.2.0 are required to compile scim-panel-kde.

If you want to use RPM to install SCIM, then please make sure before compiling and starting scim-panel-kde at least the RPMs for scim, scim-devel, scim-frontend-socket, scim-server-socket, scim-config-socket are installed.

Otherwise, if SCIM is compiled in your box, you have all necessary files.

If you do not want Gtk2 based original GUI from SCIM, you can disable them while configure SCIM: after you compile it, you can still compile scim-panel-kde. In a word, scim-panel-kde does not depend on original Gtk2 based GUI.

Compilation and Installation

Compiling scim-panel-kde is very easy. The following should do it:

          %./configure
          %make
          %make install
        

The last command should be executed as root. Should you run into any problems, please report them to the author.

Chapter 3. Using scim-panel-kde

Prerequisite

Before you can use any XIM server in X, your environment must be setup.

First, edit the file ~/.xinitrc (if it does not exist, create one), and modify it according to the sample below

export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
export LANG="zh_CN.GBK"
startkde
if you want to use Chinese interface, or
%export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
%export LC_CTYPE="zh_CN.GBK"
%startkde
if you prefer English (which is the default) interface.

Change the locale/encoding according to your favorite. Now available locales/encodings supported by SCIM is as follows

zh_TW.Big5,zh_TW,zh_HK.Big5-HKSCS,zh_HK,zh_CN.GB18030,zh_CN.GBK,zh_CN.GB2312,zh_CN,ja_JP.eucJP,ja_JP.ujis,ja_JP,ko_KR.eucKR,ko_KR
although currently no proper methods are availabe neither for Korean nor Janpanese.

WARNING: some of these locales/encodings are not recommended to use, such as zh_CN.GB2312 (please use zh_CN instead), due to bugs in other applications/libraries (Xfree 86 etc.)

(These are verified under Gentoo, but maybe some other issues will jump in the way if you use different distros.)

Start scim-panel-kde

Before trying starting scim-panel-kde, please make sure that SCIM and scim-panel-gtk are not running; if they are, kill them: first kill scim then scim-panel-gtk as follows:

%killall SCIM
      %killall scim-panel-gtk
      

Currently, you can use two different methods to start scim-panel-kde and SCIM:

Let scim-panel-kde do all the dirty work

Since scim-panel-kde 0.7.2, a new plugin called SCIM Launcher is available, it will start SCIM automatically when you start scim-panel-kde.

So all you should do to start scim-panel-kde and SCIM is just

          %scim-panel-kde -d
	
or start it from "KDE Menu->Utilitis->scim-panel-kde"

Manually start scim-panel-kde

If for some reasons (eg. debug), you want to start scim-panel-kde and SCIM manually and separately, then you should do followings

First, you should disable the SCIM Launcher plugin in Configuration of scim-panel-kde, then it should be started as follows:

          %scim-panel-kde -d
          %scim -c socket -d
    

IMPORTANT: At present, scim-panel-kde should be started before SCIM.

If you need gtk_immodule, then please run following commands:

          %scim-panel-kde -d
	  %export SCIM_CONFIG_SOCKET_ADDRESS="local:/tmp/scim-panel-socket"
          %scim -f socket -ns socket -c socket -d
	  %scim -f x11 -s socket -c socket -d
        

If you prefer scim to start scim-panel-kde automatically, then at present a work around is: move scim-panel-gtk to other place or name, such as:

    	%mv /usr/bin/scim-panel-gtk /usr/bin/scim-panel-gtk.real
    
(Assumption is made that scim resides in /usr) then make a soft link from scim-panel-kde:
    	%ln -s /usr/kde/3.2/bin/scim-panel-kde /usr/bin/scim-panel-gtk
    
(I assume your KDE is installed into /usr/kde/3.2/) (In following releases, I hope I can find a formal way to achieve this)

Chapter 4. Questions, Answers, and Tips

Frequently asked questions

4.1. Question 1. Why do you bother to write scim-panel-kde now that SCIM already has a Gtk2 based panel?
4.2. Question 2. SCIM and scim-panel-kde are loaded successfully, and I can trigger input method and input CJK, but the inputed characters refuse to transfer into target KDE/Qt applications.
4.3. Question 3. How can I modify SCIM specific settings? I can't find them in the configuration dialog.
4.1.

Question 1. Why do you bother to write scim-panel-kde now that SCIM already has a Gtk2 based panel?

Ok, the most important reason is that: Nearly all applications running on my Desktop are KDE/Qt based ones, and SCIM's panel was the only exception, and it does not fit into the entire K Desktop Environment very well, so I decided to write a KDE/Qt panel for SCIM.

On the other hand, the Gtk2 panel has some disadvantages, which scim-panel-kde is designed to overcome, such as incapability of online reconfigurable.

4.2.

Question 2. SCIM and scim-panel-kde are loaded successfully, and I can trigger input method and input CJK, but the inputed characters refuse to transfer into target KDE/Qt applications.

Make sure the XIM Input Style setting of Qt is "Over The Spot". You can change this by invoking "qtconfig", "Interface" tab, at the bottom of this page.

4.3.

Question 3. How can I modify SCIM specific settings? I can't find them in the configuration dialog.

Currently only scim-panel-kde specific settings are supported in configuration dialog, however you can modify SCIM's using scim-setup. Please start it as:

          %SCIM_CONFIG_SOCKET_ADDRESS="local:/tmp/scim-panel-socket" scim-setup
          

After scim-setup started, please change "Current Config Module" to "socket", otherwise what you modified won't be used by SCIM launchered by scim-panel-kde.

Make sure that before starting scim-setup, scim-panel-kde has already been started.

(This issure will be solved in later version.)

Chapter 5. Credits and License

scim-panel-kde

Program copyright 2004 Liucougar (Liuspider) <liuspider@yahoo.com>

Contributors:

Documentation Copyright (c) 2004 Liucougar (Liuspider) <liuspider@yahoo.com>

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.