Qt / KDE and Skim / Xim

[Simon Hausmann]

On Sunday 27 May 2007 21:11:29 Thomas Zander wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> in KOffice I need to port/implement the input method code to allow people
> to input Chinese or even to input normal composited characters.
>
> In my kubuntu kde3 I have a context menu in kmail and in Qts text fields
> to select the input method.  "Select Input Method" with submenu items
> like "XIM" and "scim".
>
> Using this menu is essential to start typing in Chinese, for example.
>
> I'm wondering how to do that in KDE in general and in Qt4 when I inherit
> from QWidget in particular.

The menu is the result of a patch distros ship that adds modular input method 
plugin support to Qt 3. Scim/uim have plugins that Qt loads directly then for 
input method support, instead of going through the ancient xim interface.

In Qt 4 a patch is fortunately not necessary anymore as QInputContext is 
public API and Qt by default loads input context plugins. Unfortunately 
kubuntu at least does not ship any uim/scim plugins for Qt 4 (uim-qt uses 
qt3, despite the package description). So the only way right now to use input 
methods in Kubuntu with Qt 4 is through xim.

So Qt comes with input method "plugins" (they're actually compiled in) for 
Windows and Mac and with one that uses XIM. In addition there is 
src/plugins/inputmethods/imsw-multi which QApplication automatically uses as 
default input context if there is more than one input context plugin 
installed. The imsw-multi input context is a proxy that provides a QAction 
with a sub-menu that allows choosing the current input method. QLineEdit for 
example adds that to the context menu using:

#if !defined(QT_NO_IM)
    QInputContext *qic = inputContext();
    if (qic) {
        QList<QAction *> imActions = qic->actions();
        for (int i = 0; i < imActions.size(); ++i)
            popup->addAction(imActions.at(i));
    }
#endif

So this is what you may want to do in your custom input widget, too.

However since there is no shipped qt 4 input method plugin at the moment in 
kubuntu at least you can test input method support only through xim 
basically. But that works fine for me:

* Install scim, skim and for example scim-tables-additional
* Enable the languages in skim
* set XMODIFIERS to @im=SCIM
* Start a Qt application
* Activate the input method using Ctrl+Space

In order to receive input method events and queries (see 
QWidget::inputMethodQuery) you have to set the Qt::WA_InputMethodEnabled 
widget attribute.

Simon
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