# IBus and Qt Applications **URL:** \ **Category:** General system\ **Created:** [June 12, 2021, 3:24am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125 "2021-06-12T03:24:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/kresimir/32/73739_2.png) [@Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Kresimir)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 3:24am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/1 "2021-06-12T03:24:09Z")
[A recent post](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/post-your-handy-utility-scripts/7213/127) by @jonathon introduced me to [IBus](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/post-your-handy-utility-scripts/7213/127), a input method mainly for Asian writing systems, but also for emojis and other Unicode characters. It seems nice enough to explore it in more detail. I followed the Arch Wiki, which involved three steps: 1. installing the `ibus` package with pacman: 2. setting the following environment variables: ```nohighlight GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus QT_IM_MODULE=ibus XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus ``` 3. running the `ibus-daemon`, either alone: ```nohighlight ibus-daemon -drxR ``` or with a KDE Input Method Panel as frontend: ```nohighlight ibus-daemon -drxR --panel=/usr/lib/kimpanel-ibus-panel ``` On KDE Plasma the above steps somewhat work, apart from few minor issues: e.g. the switching between keyboard layouts using the shortcut Meta+  Space   is broken (it displays the list of keyboard layouts, but switching between them does nothing), and other little things like that… However, my main issue is with emoji input (which is the main reason I am exploring this program). The input method is this: press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E, type the name of the emoji, press   Space   to preview the emoji and then Enter  . This works fine in many applications (like Firefox, for example this frog: 🐸, Alacrity, LibreOffice Writer…), except it does nothing in Qt applications, the keyboard shortcut is not registered at all. As it happens, the two programs (Konsole and Kate) I would like to use this in the most are both Qt applications… After fiddling with it the whole night, I am now quite exhausted. Does anyone have any experience using IBus on KDE? ---
**Author:** ![keybreak](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/keybreak/32/9257_2.png) [@keybreak](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/keybreak)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 5:57am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/2 "2021-06-12T05:57:36Z")
@zangoku have some `ibus` experience as far as i remember, maybe he’ll help 🙃 ---
**Author:** ![jonathon](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/jonathon/32/18722_2.png) [@jonathon](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/jonathon)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 11:00am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/3 "2021-06-12T11:00:06Z")
> [@Kresimir](#): > > it does nothing in Qt applications This kind of sounds like something else is overriding `QT_IM_MODULE`. 🤔 ---
**Author:** ![Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/kresimir/32/73739_2.png) [@Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Kresimir)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/4 "2021-06-12T15:53:45Z")
Doesn’t look like it is: ```nohighlight ~🐸 echo $QT_IM_MODULE ibus ``` ---
**Author:** ![zangoku](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/zangoku/32/9312_2.png) [@zangoku](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/zangoku)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/5 "2021-06-14T00:04:49Z")
I use fcitx for asian input instead of ibus. You could always try to give fcitx a shotx but I am not sure how it works for emojis. ---
**Author:** ![jonathon](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/jonathon/32/18722_2.png) [@jonathon](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/jonathon)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 12:13am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/6 "2021-06-14T00:13:34Z")
The other idea I have is that there’s another keyboard shortcut that’s grabbing CTRL+ALT+E… I don’t use KDE though. 😔 ---
**Author:** ![Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/user_avatar/forum.endeavouros.com/kresimir/32/73739_2.png) [@Kresimir](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Kresimir)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 8:53am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/7 "2021-06-14T08:53:26Z")
I’ve had a bit more time to look into it and I noticed that when I start the daemon from the interactive shell session in Konsole, I have to close Konsole. When I reopen it, the keyboard shortcut works in it. If I start the daemon from a script in `~/.config/autostart-scripts` that does nothing. 😕 I’ll figure it out, now I know that it _can_ work in Qt apps, that’s the only thing that matters. ---
**Author:** ![Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/439d5e/32.png) [@Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Vanderscycle)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/8 "2022-01-10T20:10:22Z")
Hey, Sorry, to reopen an old thread but I am also having issues with ibus/fcitx wrt asian language inputs. I am having the same issues that you have but on xmonad 🙃. The ibus-daemon doesn’t start automatically despite writing a auto start file in ~/.config/ The content of my autostart file. ```auto [Desktop Entry] Exec=ibus-daemon -drx Icon=system-run StartupNotify=true Terminal=false Type=Application ``` Wondering if you found a more permanent solution? ---
**Author:** ![Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/439d5e/32.png) [@Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Vanderscycle)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2022, 1:16am UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/9 "2022-01-11T01:16:44Z")
I was able to install ibus but can’t run the last step which is ibus-setup. Something is wrong with my python (miniconda). Keeps giving me this error. I did install the Gtk3 package required using conda. `conda install -c conda-forge gtk3` ```python Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/ibus/setup/main.py", line 38, in gi_require_version('IBus', '1.0') File "/home/henri/miniconda3/lib/python3.9/site-packages/gi/ __init__.py", line 126, in require_version raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace) ValueError: Namespace IBus not available ``` ---
**Author:** ![Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/439d5e/32.png) [@Vanderscycle](https://forum.endeavouros.com/u/Vanderscycle)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 3:42pm UTC](https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/ibus-and-qt-applications/15125/10 "2022-01-12T15:42:57Z")
switched to fcitx which solved the issue. content of my /etc/environment file ```auto GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx XMODIFIERS=@im=fcitx ```