[Uim] Die, .uim file, die!

[Jun Inoue]

Hi Dave.

Dave M G <martin at autotelic.com> writes:

> I am using Ubuntu Dapper 6.04, and I have UIM/Scim/Anthy set up for
> Japanese input for within my largely English operating environment.

What is the version of uim?  Looking at an Ubuntu mirror, the default
looks like 1.0.0-1ubuntu1.  Is this correct?


> Using the UIM preferences tool, I have made some custom configurations
> which I find more comfortable. For example, I have set [ctrl]+[space]
> as the keyboard shortcut keys for switching inputs, instead of the
> default [shift]+[space].

Yeah, I hate that binding too....  It's a historical legacy.


> It's almost working perfectly.

Great! :)  Let's get rid of that "almost".


> The problem is that every time I reboot, a file called .uim gets
> created in my home directory, and this file over-rides all my
> customization. For example, the keyboard shortcuts return to
> [shift]+[space].
>
> Through experimentation, I have discovered that simply deleting this
> file will restore my personal preferences.

What's it say in that .uim file?  Please show us a copy.


> I have tried leaving the file in place, and using the preferences tool
> to reconfigure my settings, but this file accepts no changes.
>
> I don't know why this file is being created every time I reboot, as it
> clearly is not needed for the successful operation of
> UIM/Scim/Anthy. I don't know what process is creating it, or why it is
> determined to force the default settings.

The thing here is that the preference wizard saves its customizations
in a directory named ~/.uim.d (you should have this if you've used the
wizard).  .uim is a file for manics who want to tweak it further, like
deploying a more elaborate key binding.  It's also there for backward
compatibility.

Manually editing .uim used to be the only way to configure uim, so it
has to override .uim.d in order not to break existing configurations.
Possibly, some outdated configuration utility still thinks that's the
case, and is shoving a template in place for you.  I don't have this
problem with uim-1.0.0-1 on Debian, so it could be Ubuntu-specific.
(Now, I'm not the most knowledgeable about this part.  Maybe someone
else has heard of such a utility before.  Anyone?)

Although you can manually edit .uim to configure uim, your best bet is
to track down the culprit and stop it.  If you're lucky, the very file
will say who created it.  If not, one thing you could try is to remove
.uim, set your home directory unwritable to anyone, reboot and see if
anything complains about permission denial.  By the way, maybe logging
out and then back in instead of rebooting triggers that .uim creation,
which can save you time.  Otherwise, you might have to dig into
/usr/share/uim or maybe somewhere else and look for a file that's the
same as, or contains, the file being automagically created.