Thinking of installing Kimpanel plasmoid for Japanese input as an alternative to Skim due to it’s unstable / incompatibility with KDE4.
Anybody have any experience with it? Which anthy backend works best? scim-anthy or ibus-anthy?
Install instructions at all or does it drag in all its own dependencies?
Yes, You can use kimpanel.
But the package from KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop seems not working for me.
You can try from my test repository (this is not an official package)
Index of /repositories/home:/swyear:/ibus/openSUSE_11.2
I only test on openSUSE 11.2, not sure if work for earlier version.
for scim:
1.install plasma-addons-scim and plasma-addons-kimpanel
2.drag the kimpanel component to systray
3.ln -s /usr/lib(64)/scim-1.0/kimpanel-scim ~/.kde4/Autostart
4.re-login
I can type Chinese:我可以輸入中文,I think it will be OK for Japanese.
screenshot here:
Picasa Web Albums - chen - ibus 1.2 for …
for ibus:
1.install plasma-addons-ibus and plasma-addons-kimpanel (and sure you should install ibus and ibus-anthy)
2.drag the kimpanel component to systray
3.re-login
4.if can’t active input-method in firefox, run SuSEconfig as root to update gtk-immodule
わだしわ
screenshot here:
Picasa Web Albums - chen - ibus 1.2 for …
Can the input bar free float or does it have to be docked in the tray?
Can the input bar be turned on and off with a short-cut in the same way as Skim so it is only present when needed?
Anthy is the Japanese input module? What module do you use for Chinese?
I’m guessing to input Japanese I would need to install from Opensuse repo scim-anthy if using scim input.
In one of your screen-shots it looks like you have anthy installed (pic with the golden crown)
I take it that scim needs to be installed but not running?
Press the green arrow then input bar can float from the tray.
Anthy IS Japanese input-module. I type Chinese using chewing module.
The golden crown input module is ibus-anthy module. I install it just for testing…
Install ibus for 11.2 refer to:
How to run IBUS input method on openSUSE 11.2? - openSUSE Forums
If you have installed scim-anthy, re-login should be OK to use scim to input Japanese.
But the scim systray has some bug(?) that can’t show up. But Ctrl-space can active the input-method.
Or
killall scim-panel-gtk
But if you use kimpanel, Nothing is important above
sorry about the misunderstanding - I don’t actually want to use scim - but does it need to be installed - or just scim-anthy?
scim is needed by scim-anthy
and also you better install scim-bridge-* and other dependencies
hmmmmm . . . .
I might need some hand holding with this.
I have all the scim dependencies installed.
I installed the two files from your repo.
However, I can’t work out how to invoke kimpanel.
If I right click the desktop to add new widgets kimpanel is not listed.
If I invoke kimpanel from the command line I get a grey panel about 1cm wide with absolutely nothing on it.
Any ideas?
Are you using KDE 4.3 or 4.4(from factory)?
I am using 4.3
I’m now using KDE4.4
Picasa Web Albums - chen - ibus 1.2 for …
But I’ve test it when KDE4.3.x
黑眼珠2: kimpanel for ibus and scim](http://swyear.blogspot.com/2009/12/kimpanel-for-ibus-and-scim.html)
Oh, OK - I wasn’t recognising the widget to add.
I have followed your instructions and installed the two files. Adde the widget and dragged to my taskbar.
Copied the file kimpanel-scim to /home/farcus/.kde4/Autostart and rebooted.
However, you can see from my screenshot it is not loading scim.
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5008/kimpanel.th.jpg](http://img196.imageshack.us/i/kimpanel.jpg/)
Any ideas?
The small scim icon you can see in the taksbar is because I have Yast2 running from Root.
Hi farcusnz:
You are right
kimpanel can’t showup properly
Sorry for not not fully tested
I think it’s because you use an locale other than ja_JP
kimpanel or scim seems try to find some environment variable to determine the default input-method (e.g for ja_JP is anthy or katakana, for zh_TW is chewing)
I was tested in zh_TW locale, so chewing-module will be launched, and then I can switch to anthy by click the systray icon.
When remove scim-chewing and other Chinese input-method, kimpanel (or scim) can’t show up properly, though it can still active by Ctrl-space (but no icon)
So, try this:(at least work for me)
edit ~/.profile add a variable (any variable) e.g
export USE_INPUT=ja_JP
(or formally:
export LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8)
then re-login
see if trick works.
unfortunately that trick did not work. Although it did have the unfortunate side effect of changing the language of my weather plasmoid from English to Japanese. 
On the positive - I have removed scim/skim from my system and decided to have a play with ibus.
It was very easy to install - just downloaded the required files from your rep - reboated and it was ready to go. Nothing difficult in getting it up and running (which was a nice change from Skim which after a fresh install of Opensuse 11.2 last year took me a couple of days to get working)
There is one question about ibus though.
It loads the gtk tray module by default. I can kill it and if I use kmenu to load again it loads the qt tray module.
Is there any way to make the qt tray module the default for when the system powers up?
Sorry I’m not sure what you are talking about
maybe you can take a screenshot
And glad to know ibus work for you
It’s a bit hard to see in the screenshots . . .
but in the first is the gtk ibus panel
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/3663/ibusgtk.th.jpg](http://img203.imageshack.us/i/ibusgtk.jpg/)
& in the second screenshot I have killed ibus and launced it manually from kickoff - which loads a QT version of ibus
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/93/ibusqt.th.jpg](http://img689.imageshack.us/i/ibusqt.jpg/)
The QT version follows my window settings (QTcurve)
Although I have GTK apps set to follow my KDE settings - ibus gtk panel does not adhere to these settings.
To be honest, it’s not a big deal.
I am liking the simplicity and clean lines of ibus compared to Skim/scim
All I did was install Skim using Yast, along with all the dependencies it wanted, and since then it has always been working just fine. It has never crashed a single time, nor have I ever found a single incompatibility among all the applications I’ve thrown at it. Japanese input (Anthy) works perfectly lol!
I found it among the widgets avter upgrading to Kde 4.4 and added it to my panel to see hoiw it works. All it did was adding a green arrow. When you click on the green arrow, exactly nothing happens, except that the green arrow changes into a pencil. Its configure dialog didn’t have any options to configure it either.
Since Skim works fine for me, I didn’t see any reason why I should waste any more time to see why it does nothing.
I had no problems with Scim / skim up until 11.2. I used to install from the secondary language install in Yast2 but this would not work for me in 11.2. As to the reason why - nobody has been able to tell me as yet.
I ended up installing just scim / skim from Yast 2 myself and after some playing around got it going and it has been working fine for the past six months or more. However, it does occasionally crash the dcop server on boot and i have to reboot Opensuse. Also, recently, it has started defaulting to Japanese/Anthy on boot and I have been unable to work out why. Obviously I must have changed something to cause this but cannot work out what.
However, having installed ibus the other day - it just works - without having to play with any settings at all.
ps aux | grep ibus
see if there’s any differences
no, still loads the gtk module on boot. But as I said, not a big problem.
I just found an interesting resource to use Kimpanel with ibus here : kimpanel + ibus 输入法 - Windows Live (use google translate).
Kimpanel is loaded on boot, and it is working fine 
