Questions and thoughts about input method protocol

[Bill Spitzak]

On 02/02/2013 09:12 PM, Yichao Yu wrote:

> E.g. for non-cjk input method, there is likely to be only one per
> language (which is likely to be a keyboard layout). They normally
> never need cursor following window, don't have dozens of internal
> states. Even the use of preedit is not that common.

Actually it would be really nice to have compose-key interfaces support 
pre-edit. Right now to get an æ, you type the compose key (which causes 
nothing visible to happen), type and a (which also causes nothing 
visible to happen), then type an e and finally see the result. Also if 
you type 'j' instead of 'e' then both keys vanish as though nothing 
happened.

I suspect because preedit was a pain to support under X it was never 
tried. I hope wayland makes this easy enough that we can get this 
behavior: 1. you type the compose key, and the cursor changes because a 
zero-length preedit was sent, so you have visual feedback. Then you type 
an 'a' and you see an a, perhaps highlighted as preedit. Then you type 
an 'e' and you see the committed æ. Furthermore if you type 'j' you will 
in fact commit the 'a' and see 'aj' which is a lot more useful.

This sort of preview also allows 1-letter compose keys. For instance 
compose,1 can produce the super-script ¹, assuming the user does not 
type 2 next (which would produce ½).