[Uim] UIM-latin: how does it work?

[Etsushi Kato]

Hi Christian,

On 5/31/06, Christian Fröbel <cfroebel at web.de> wrote:
> this is a bit confusing. I think Multi_key is the same as the compose key,
> right?

Exactly.  Multi_key is the symbol name used in X11 as a so-called compose key.

> In this case it is diffecult to test for me. After I posted in this
> forum I found out that what I was looking for could be done with the usual
> Xorg stuff by simply defining the compose key, e. g.:
>
> setxkbmap us -option compose:rwin
>
> With that I could input Latin characters in quite the same way as you
> described (or exactly the same way?).

Good :)  It is definitely required to set up keyboard map properly to use
 compose key input.

> Now, if scim is running as well, who's interpreting the keys, X or scim?

It depends.  In this case, SCIM interprets your compose key sequence, I think.
I totally agree with you that this is a very confusing thing.

AFAIK,
* X11 has it own compose input method.  This can be used in any simple
X clients (like xterm) if XIM program (SCIM's x11 front end, uim-xim,
and so on) is not running.  Key sequence is defined in Compose file in
X11's locale directory (somewhere/X11/locale/*/Compose), and which
Compose file is used is defined in compose.dir file in
somewhere/X11/locale.

* gtk+2 uses its own compose mechanism if user doesn't setup to use
SCIM or uim (i.e. not set up GTK_IM_MODULE environment variable).  The
key sequences used in gkt+2 is a small subset of X11's compose
sequence.

* SCIM uses it own compose mechanism.  I thinks its key sequences is
mostly same as in X11's, but not sure.

* uim doesn't have built in compose mechanism.  It uses X11's compose
mechanism on program using XIM via uim-xim, and uses gtk+2 mechanism
(subset of X11's) on program using gtk+2.  Besides, uim has uim-latin
IM (it uses a small subset of X11's sequence and I think it is not
well maintained, sorry).

> Does X use uim too if the compose key is defined?

If your GTK_IM_MODULE and XMODIFIERS environmental variable are setup
to use uim, yes as I wrote in above.

> I'm not very deep into this topic but I'm certain there's a lot of confusion
> out there and only very little useful documentation.
>
> Anyway, I got it working for me now.
>
> Domo arigato,

Bitte!
-- 
Etsushi Kato
ek.kato at gmail.com