Not sure if this is the correct place to send this, but I'll send it here anyway (please tell me if there's a better place).
I've recently installed ibus in order to get some impression of how our new im framework will integrate in the desktop. While playing with it, I took some notes, that I'd like to share.
Matthias
---
Status icon
- The tooltip "IBus - Running" is pretty pointless less and should be removed until there is something useful to say
- There is no way to switch back to "no input method" from the status icon. I have to press Ctrl-space to go back. Maybe add an "None" entry at the bottom of the menu ?
Toolbar
- Why do input methods seem to fancy these weird undecorated floating toolbars ? Does it add anything that is not already present in the status icon ?
- If we can't drop it, can there at least be a way to turn it off ?
- The toolbar seems useless if "focus-follows-mouse" is turned on, since it becomes inactive on focus out. This also affects the status icon.
Menus
- What is the plan, going forward, wrt to im-chooser ? I'd hate to have 2 input method related menuitems in the default install. My preference would be to not install the im-chooser by default, since it is only needed to switch back to 'legacy' frameworks.
- It would be great if we could use the generic "Input Method" menuitem for the ibus preferences, and maybe rename im-chooser to "Input Method Framework" or something like that.
- Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
- There is a mismatch between the menuitem and the ibus-setup window, both the window title and icon don't match the menu, as they should.
Preferences, General tab
- "Aauto start IBus on session login" is very techno babble. Can we make that something like "Enable Input Methods" ? I don't think there is any need to talk about sessions and autostart here.
- Keyboard shortcuts: I would love to see these moved to the keyboard shortcuts capplet, which has support for handling application-defined shortcuts. As a bonus, you get automatic conflict handling. The one restriction is that currently, only one key-combination per action is possible. If having multiple is essential, you could either split it into "Trigger", "Alternative Trigger", "Second Alternative Trigger", or file a bug and I'll look into enabling multiple shortcuts per action in the keybinding capplet
- "UI" is a bad section label. How about "Fonts & Style" instead ? Even better would be to split it into two sections, a la
Input Window Lookup table orientation: [Vertical] [ ] Use the system font Input Window Font: [Sans 10]
Language Bar [ ] Show language bar [ ] Hide language bar when it is not needed
Preferences, Engine tab
- "Engine" is a technical term that is not really helpful here. How about "Languages" instead ?
- There are some icons missing in the combo box, e.g Telugu-apple, Telugu-rts, Marathi-phonetic, Marathi-itrans...
- The main list needs to repeat the language name (like the status icon menu already does) otherwise it is not clear if "phonetic" is Oriya or Marathi.
Preferences, About tab
This should not be done as a tab, it is very much against the style of our preference tools. There is already an About menu item on the status icon. If you absolutely want to have an "About" in the preferences, it should be a left-aligned "About" button in the action area that brings up an about dialog. But I'd really just get rid of it.
Hi,
Thank you for your review. that would be good input to improve it.
Let me have some comments where I can say something.
On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:24:09 -0500, "MC" == Matthias Clasen mclasen@redhat.com wrote:
MC> Status icon
MC> - There is no way to switch back to "no input method" from the status MC> icon. I have to press Ctrl-space to go back. Maybe add an "None" entry MC> at the bottom of the menu ?
I'm not sure what you expect to "no input method" though, if it's something like "Disable input method" at im-chooser, it won't work as expected. probably imsettings applet may wants to integrate the status icon with IM-specific operations such as changing engines etc. or do you want a kind of "English" entry as SCIM has? in either case that would be better filing a bug to bugzilla.
MC> Toolbar
MC> - Why do input methods seem to fancy these weird undecorated floating MC> toolbars ? Does it add anything that is not already present in the MC> status icon ?
Yes, it does. and it's supposed to provide similar feature in SCIM and IMs where is running at Windows say. which provides facilities to change various conditions such as the input-mode, style etc.
MC> - If we can't drop it, can there at least be a way to turn it off ?
That would be a good idea. please file a bug :)
MC> - The toolbar seems useless if "focus-follows-mouse" is turned on, since MC> it becomes inactive on focus out. This also affects the status icon.
Indeed. there are same problem on SCIM too. do you have any idea to get this working on even "focus-follows-mouse" mode?
MC> Menus
MC> - What is the plan, going forward, wrt to im-chooser ? I'd hate to have MC> 2 input method related menuitems in the default install. My preference MC> would be to not install the im-chooser by default, since it is only MC> needed to switch back to 'legacy' frameworks.
And to "disable input method" too. since im-chooser is just a frontend application for imsettings, we've tried to kick it out from the dependencies chain, but we missed the way to disable input method from GUI then. now applet could do that but it's hidden by default as you suggested.
MC> - Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe MC> ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup MC> doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
I'd prefer this idea since other IMs follows that.
MC> - There is a mismatch between the menuitem and the ibus-setup window, MC> both the window title and icon don't match the menu, as they should.
Can you file a bug for that?
MC> Preferences, General tab
MC> - "Aauto start IBus on session login" is very techno babble. Can we make MC> that something like "Enable Input Methods" ? I don't think there is any MC> need to talk about sessions and autostart here.
Actually incomplete feature so far. since the environment variables still needs to be set to get all things working. and that feature doesn't take care of it. IMHO we should drop it from preference to avoid any confusion.
MC> - Keyboard shortcuts: I would love to see these moved to the keyboard MC> shortcuts capplet, which has support for handling application-defined MC> shortcuts. As a bonus, you get automatic conflict handling. The one MC> restriction is that currently, only one key-combination per action is MC> possible. If having multiple is essential, you could either split it MC> into "Trigger", "Alternative Trigger", "Second Alternative Trigger", or MC> file a bug and I'll look into enabling multiple shortcuts per action in MC> the keybinding capplet
That sounds promising. I'd love to see that too :)
Cheers, -- Akira TAGOH
On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 11:19 +0900, Akira TAGOH wrote:
MC> - There is no way to switch back to "no input method" from the status MC> icon. I have to press Ctrl-space to go back. Maybe add an "None" entry MC> at the bottom of the menu ?
I'm not sure what you expect to "no input method" though, if it's something like "Disable input method" at im-chooser, it won't work as expected. probably imsettings applet may wants to integrate the status icon with IM-specific operations such as changing engines etc. or do you want a kind of "English" entry as SCIM has?
I was basically looking for a way to do what the "trigger" key does. If "English" is an appropriate description of that, then sure. But I doubt that "English" is the right name when I'm e.g. logged in in German.
MC> - Why do input methods seem to fancy these weird undecorated floating MC> toolbars ? Does it add anything that is not already present in the MC> status icon ?
Yes, it does. and it's supposed to provide similar feature in SCIM and IMs where is running at Windows say. which provides facilities to change various conditions such as the input-mode, style etc.
Ok. Would it not be better to provide this functionality through the status icon as well ? Having to places related to im control (the status icon in the upper left, and the toolbar somewhere else) seems suboptimal. And the naked toolbar looks really quite foreign to anybody who hasn't had years of conditioning by other im frameworks...
MC> - Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe MC> ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup MC> doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
I'd prefer this idea since other IMs follows that.
It would be so much better to have one input method framework, and make that work for everything, rather than wrapping a framework selection framework around it. I think I have stated that opinion several times already...
I'll see about filing some of my comments as bugs tonight. Feel free to close them if they have already been handled.
Matthias
Very late followup to the original discussion in Feb...
MC> - Why do input methods seem to fancy these weird undecorated floating MC> toolbars ? Does it add anything that is not already present in MC> the status icon ?
Yes, it does. and it's supposed to provide similar feature in SCIM and IMs where is running at Windows say. which provides facilities to change various conditions such as the input-mode, style etc.
Ok. Would it not be better to provide this functionality through the status icon as well ? Having two places related to im control (...) seems suboptimal. And the naked toolbar looks really quite foreign to anybody who hasn't had years of conditioning by other im frameworks...
I tend to agree - I would not mind taking this discussion to bz. Old habits are hard to die/kill though...
Perhaps we should turn off the toolbar by default?
I think that the functionality of the toolbar should be duplicated in the panel icon menus anyway for users that turn off the toolbar.
Jens
Hi Matthias Clasen,
Thanks for your reviewing. I embedded my comments below. please check them.
Matthias Clasen wrote:
Not sure if this is the correct place to send this, but I'll send it here anyway (please tell me if there's a better place).
I've recently installed ibus in order to get some impression of how our new im framework will integrate in the desktop. While playing with it, I took some notes, that I'd like to share.
Matthias
Status icon
- The tooltip "IBus - Running" is pretty pointless less and should be
removed until there is something useful to say
I'd like use "IBus" as other applications do to indicate this icon is for ibus.
- There is no way to switch back to "no input method" from the status
icon. I have to press Ctrl-space to go back. Maybe add an "None" entry at the bottom of the menu ?
It is useful. I will add it.
Toolbar
- Why do input methods seem to fancy these weird undecorated floating
toolbars ? Does it add anything that is not already present in the status icon ?
If we can't drop it, can there at least be a way to turn it off ?
The toolbar seems useless if "focus-follows-mouse" is turned on, since
it becomes inactive on focus out. This also affects the status icon.
It is useful for some input methods. Some IMs need it to show current IM status, and user can use it to change the IME's status and behaviours. BTW, ibus has a setting for it. User could hide it when the input method is not active. Maybe adding a configure item to always hide the bar is better.
Menus
- What is the plan, going forward, wrt to im-chooser ? I'd hate to have
2 input method related menuitems in the default install. My preference would be to not install the im-chooser by default, since it is only needed to switch back to 'legacy' frameworks.
- It would be great if we could use the generic "Input Method" menuitem
for the ibus preferences, and maybe rename im-chooser to "Input Method Framework" or something like that.
I think we need discuss it with other i18n team members.
- Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe
ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
SCIM has one, named 'SCIM Input Method Setup'.
- There is a mismatch between the menuitem and the ibus-setup window,
both the window title and icon don't match the menu, as they should.
Fixed. I use "IBus Preferences" now.
Preferences, General tab
- "Auto start IBus on session login" is very techno babble. Can we make
that something like "Enable Input Methods" ? I don't think there is any need to talk about sessions and autostart here.
How about "Start ibus on login"?
- Keyboard shortcuts: I would love to see these moved to the keyboard
shortcuts capplet, which has support for handling application-defined shortcuts. As a bonus, you get automatic conflict handling. The one restriction is that currently, only one key-combination per action is possible. If having multiple is essential, you could either split it into "Trigger", "Alternative Trigger", "Second Alternative Trigger", or file a bug and I'll look into enabling multiple shortcuts per action in the keybinding capplet
What's the keybinding capplet? Is it the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' in Preferences->Pernson menu? I tested some keyboard shortcuts, they do no work. I use compiz as my windows manager. Is it the reason?
- "UI" is a bad section label. How about "Fonts & Style" instead ? Even
better would be to split it into two sections, a la
Input Window Lookup table orientation: [Vertical] [ ] Use the system font Input Window Font: [Sans 10]
Language Bar [ ] Show language bar [ ] Hide language bar when it is not needed
Preferences, Engine tab
- "Engine" is a technical term that is not really helpful here. How
about "Languages" instead ?
I think "Input Methods" is better. But it is too long, isn't it?
- There are some icons missing in the combo box, e.g Telugu-apple,
Telugu-rts, Marathi-phonetic, Marathi-itrans...
It is a bug. It has already been fixed.
- The main list needs to repeat the language name (like the status icon
menu already does) otherwise it is not clear if "phonetic" is Oriya or Marathi.
It is reasonable.
Preferences, About tab
This should not be done as a tab, it is very much against the style of our preference tools. There is already an About menu item on the status icon. If you absolutely want to have an "About" in the preferences, it should be a left-aligned "About" button in the action area that brings up an about dialog. But I'd really just get rid of it.
It exists before About menu item on the status icon. now it is duplicated. I will remove it.
On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 11:38 +0800, Huang Peng wrote:
- The toolbar seems useless if "focus-follows-mouse" is turned on, since
it becomes inactive on focus out. This also affects the status icon.
It is useful for some input methods. Some IMs need it to show current IM status, and user can use it to change the IME's status and behaviours. BTW, ibus has a setting for it. User could hide it when the input method is not active. Maybe adding a configure item to always hide the bar is better.
Did you understand what I said about focus-follows-mouse ? Anyway, another way in which the toolbar is problematic is caused by the odd way in which input methods are started before the rest of the session. The toolbar appears way before other parts of the desktop, and hangs there, naked, in front of the background. Can we keep it hidden until the status icon has been embedded in the panel, please ?
- Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe
ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
SCIM has one, named 'SCIM Input Method Setup'.
Yes, but that does not show up in the menus. afaics.
Another case of 'menu pollution' that I only spotted after doing the review is that IBus puts another menu item at Applications -> Accessories -> IBus. That is not good, imo. First of all, the menu label does not explain at all what it does, and second, it just duplicates the functionality for starting an im framework that is already present with im-chooser. Such duplication is just confusing, please drop it.
Preferences, General tab
- "Auto start IBus on session login" is very techno babble. Can we make
that something like "Enable Input Methods" ? I don't think there is any need to talk about sessions and autostart here.
How about "Start ibus on login"?
First of all, does this not just duplicate functionality of im-chooser again ? (Of course, I would love to get rid of im-chooser, so in that case it won't duplicate it anymore...)
But also, I don't think this should be only about starting at login. It would be better to let the checkbox start and stop ibus in general. Of course, at login time, you will also use the last value of that preference to decide if ibus should be started or not.
What's the keybinding capplet? Is it the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' in Preferences->Pernson menu? I tested some keyboard shortcuts, they do no work. I use compiz as my windows manager. Is it the reason?
The window manager should only have an influence on the window management keybindings (but then, the tool is smart enough to show the right keybindings, depending on which window manager is running, I believe.
Anyway, the keybinding capplet is really just a uniform way to set gconf keys that represent keybindings. Actually grabbing the keys and doing something still needs to be done by the applications that use the keybindings.
On 02/18/2009 02:03 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 11:38 +0800, Huang Peng wrote:
- The toolbar seems useless if "focus-follows-mouse" is turned on, since
it becomes inactive on focus out. This also affects the status icon.
It is useful for some input methods. Some IMs need it to show current IM status, and user can use it to change the IME's status and behaviours. BTW, ibus has a setting for it. User could hide it when the input method is not active. Maybe adding a configure item to always hide the bar is better.
Did you understand what I said about focus-follows-mouse ? Anyway, another way in which the toolbar is problematic is caused by the odd way in which input methods are started before the rest of the session. The toolbar appears way before other parts of the desktop, and hangs there, naked, in front of the background. Can we keep it hidden until the status icon has been embedded in the panel, please ?
I do not understand 'focus-follows-mouse' well. Please explain it to me. Another question, how do I know when the systray is ready?
- Alternatively, if we can't get rid of im-chooser by default, maybe
ibus-setup should not have its own menu item (I notice that scim-setup doesn't have one either), since it is available via im-chooser.
SCIM has one, named 'SCIM Input Method Setup'.
Yes, but that does not show up in the menus. afaics.
Another case of 'menu pollution' that I only spotted after doing the review is that IBus puts another menu item at Applications -> Accessories -> IBus. That is not good, imo. First of all, the menu label does not explain at all what it does, and second, it just duplicates the functionality for starting an im framework that is already present with im-chooser. Such duplication is just confusing, please drop it.
OK. I will hide them.
Preferences, General tab
- "Auto start IBus on session login" is very techno babble. Can we make
that something like "Enable Input Methods" ? I don't think there is any need to talk about sessions and autostart here.
How about "Start ibus on login"?
First of all, does this not just duplicate functionality of im-chooser again ? (Of course, I would love to get rid of im-chooser, so in that case it won't duplicate it anymore...)
But also, I don't think this should be only about starting at login. It would be better to let the checkbox start and stop ibus in general. Of course, at login time, you will also use the last value of that preference to decide if ibus should be started or not.
Actually, before user starts ibus-setup, ibus is already running, and ibus-setup needs ibus-daemon to provide configure storage service. When use click this checkbox, ibus-setup just create a symbol link in ~/.config/autostart/ . So 'Start ibus on login' is better. Although it duplicates the function of im-chooser, but for other Linux distribution without im-chooser, it is useful.
What's the keybinding capplet? Is it the 'Keyboard Shortcuts' in Preferences->Pernson menu? I tested some keyboard shortcuts, they do no work. I use compiz as my windows manager. Is it the reason?
The window manager should only have an influence on the window management keybindings (but then, the tool is smart enough to show the right keybindings, depending on which window manager is running, I believe.
Anyway, the keybinding capplet is really just a uniform way to set gconf keys that represent keybindings. Actually grabbing the keys and doing something still needs to be done by the applications that use the keybindings.
It does not work on my box. I changed shortcut of 'Run Dialog', but 'Alt + F2' still works and the new shortcut key does not work. I guess the windows manager metacity handles those global hotkeys, but compiz does not use those settings.
On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 16:14 +0800, Peng Huang wrote:
On 02/18/2009 02:03 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Did you understand what I said about focus-follows-mouse ? Anyway, another way in which the toolbar is problematic is caused by the odd way in which input methods are started before the rest of the session. The toolbar appears way before other parts of the desktop, and hangs there, naked, in front of the background. Can we keep it hidden until the status icon has been embedded in the panel, please ?
I do not understand 'focus-follows-mouse' well. Please explain it to me. Another question, how do I know when the systray is ready?
By focus-follows-mouse, I mean the "Select windows when the mouse moves over them" option in the "Windows" capplet. If you turn that on, and move the move from the window you are working in towards the toolbar or statusicon, the window looses focus and the status icon/toolbar turn inactive, so you can't do whatever you wanted to there in the first place...
To know when the statusicon is embedded in the panel, you can listen for the "notify::embedded" signal on the GtkStatusIcon.
Matthias
On 02/19/2009 04:09 AM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 16:14 +0800, Peng Huang wrote:
On 02/18/2009 02:03 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
Did you understand what I said about focus-follows-mouse ? Anyway, another way in which the toolbar is problematic is caused by the odd way in which input methods are started before the rest of the session. The toolbar appears way before other parts of the desktop, and hangs there, naked, in front of the background. Can we keep it hidden until the status icon has been embedded in the panel, please ?
I do not understand 'focus-follows-mouse' well. Please explain it to me. Another question, how do I know when the systray is ready?
By focus-follows-mouse, I mean the "Select windows when the mouse moves over them" option in the "Windows" capplet. If you turn that on, and move the move from the window you are working in towards the toolbar or statusicon, the window looses focus and the status icon/toolbar turn inactive, so you can't do whatever you wanted to there in the first place...
I understood the problem now. We could make the panel close to the input cursor or window. But it will be a little annoying. Do you have any idea?
To know when the statusicon is embedded in the panel, you can listen for the "notify::embedded" signal on the GtkStatusIcon.
It could work. But how to deal some desktop without sys tray? Do you know other ways to check if the session startup is over?
On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 11:11 +0800, Peng Huang wrote:
By focus-follows-mouse, I mean the "Select windows when the mouse moves over them" option in the "Windows" capplet. If you turn that on, and move the move from the window you are working in towards the toolbar or statusicon, the window looses focus and the status icon/toolbar turn inactive, so you can't do whatever you wanted to there in the first place...
I understood the problem now. We could make the panel close to the input cursor or window. But it will be a little annoying. Do you have any idea?
Oh, yes, please don't go there.
The one thing more annoying than a naked floating toolbar is a naked floating toolbar that moves on its own and follows the cursor around...
To know when the statusicon is embedded in the panel, you can listen for the "notify::embedded" signal on the GtkStatusIcon.
It could work. But how to deal some desktop without sys tray? Do you know other ways to check if the session startup is over?
I wouldn't worry too much about desktops without a systray. If you don't have a systray, you don't have NetworkManager, don't have a lot of other things. To cover that case, you probably want to make the toolbar appear regardless of systray if the user toggles the (not yet existing) 'show toolbar' checkbox.
The easiest way to appear at the right point in the session startup is to be part of the session startup instead of being started outside the session. The new gnome-session starts apps in several phases, the panel being one of the first ones. So simply starting the im service in a later phase would solve the problem. gnome-keyring solves a similar problem (the daemon being started by a pam module, when important session infrastructure is not there yet) by having a little helper program that gets autostarted at the right point in the session startup and tells the daemon what it needs to know. Note that all this extra complication follows from the decision to start something before the session. (In the gnome-keyring case, it is somewhat unavoidable, since only the pam module has access to the user password thats needed to unlock the login keyring.)
Matthias
-
Akira TAGOH -
Jens-Ulrik Petersen -
Matthias Clasen -
Peng Huang