[openi18n-im:01130] Re: iiimcf/iiimgcf/compose keys

James Su wrote:
>  As far as this paradigm is concerned, if a user want to input French 
> and Chinese at the same time, he must switch between French and Chinese 
> input method frequently. It'll be very annoying if the switch can not be 
> done by a simple key pressing.
> 
> So it'll be better if one can switch between two input methods very 
> quickly by pressing a simple key, for example ctrl+space or shift+space. 
> In most cases, one of the two input methods  is for the native language, 
> the other is for commonly used foreign language.
> 
> In my point of view, English/European language is likely one of the two 
> languages, in most cases. So using a hotkey to switch between another 
> language and English/European should be ok for most users.

Yup, I think the simplest UI is if toggling just takes one back to
the previous LE used where the current "off state" (direct input) would
also counts as an LE (or at least that is how it should look and feel
for users).  This is also the UI used in OS X btw.

On the other hand since European input already works without an IM
for people with a European/International keyboard it seems kind of
a waste to reimplement all the deadkey stuff in im-sdk again?  I think
people would expect it to "just work" when iiimf is off.


A few comments about the current Latin (European) support in unitLE:

1) Currently it only seems possible to input non-ascii chars with
European keyboard layout (ie using deadkeys) AFAICT.  [Can someone explain
the latin.utf content to me?]  There really needs to be an LE allowing
input of European characters without deadkeys (a la Emacs quail).
As it is now Latin LE is pretty useless if there are no deadkeys bound.

2) AFAICT only dead_acute and dead_grave currently work with Latin unitLE.
All the other deadkeys are currently ignored.  Though I would be happy
to hear that I am wrong.

If the deadkeys worked when iiimf is off, then Latin LE could instead
give the no-deadkey version of European input: eg with prefix/suffix
to give accents for example, and then everyone would be happy I think. :-)

Jens