I installed fcitx5 on my Xfce desktop environment. Now, I can type in all the languages I use, but I’m wondering if I can modify the behaviour of fcitx5.
The current behaviour (default, I guess):
I can only switch between languages when a text box (e.g. browser search bar) is active.
Suppose English is default, and I have installed input methods for languages A, B, and C, when a text box is active:
<super+space> switches to language A,
<super+space> again switches back to English,
say language B is currently chosen, to switch to language C, I must press <super+space+space+space+space>, where it cycles through English → A → B → C.
I find this behaviour rather inconvenient, can I modify it to something like this:
switch between languages anywhere.
cycle through languages in a continuous manner, i.e.
<super+space> always switches to the next language,
<super+space+space+…> cycles through languages, starting from the next language.
Hello @Kaede,
I do not really feel the necessity of fcitx5 (perhaps some East-Asian layout is used).
Nevertheless I made an experiment using from AUR a package named xkblayout-state-git
hopoff.sh
#!/bin/bash
xkblayout-state print "%c" > ~/.kblayout.txt ## numeric value of kb layout 0..
echo >> ~/.kblayout.txt ##crlf
hopon.sh
#!/bin/bash
KBLN=$(<~/.kblayout.txt)
xkblayout-state set "$KBLN"
The first tiny script puts the keyboard layout down at logout
and the second one picks it up at login time.
Optional Keyboard Application Shortcut to ‘toggle’ :
This +1 can be an absolute value starting from 0 up to the layouts-1
Hello @eso ,
Thank you for your reply! I use quite a few Asian languages, so an input method manager is necessary for me .
Regarding your kind suggestion, I actually use the same keyboard layout – en_US – to type all the languages (Japanese, Chinese_TW, Chinese_CN, and Korean), so I’m afraid the package you suggested may not help me here…
I also tried Ibus, at first it seemed better as it provided a somewhat more continuous cycling behaviour, until I realised its chewing input method (Chinese_TW) is buggy.
I’m getting used to the cycling behaviour of fcitx5 though, although I really wish I could switch languages even when my cursor is not in a text box, which is so much more convenient.
After toggling off “Enumerate when press[ing] trigger key repeatedly”, I have continuous cycling now. It’s left to figure out how to switch languages anywhere…
Morning @Kaede ,
As long as ‘Keyboard Layouts’ are reflected in the Panel the method above could work.
I’m ready to test it with fcitx5 although I have to figure out this fcitx5. Earlier I used ibus-mozc for Japanese but not under XFCE.
This 2 scripts do not make a mess. chmod +x is needed for them to make them runable.
Edit: There are two directions. It has a limited benefit to preserve the last keyboard layout during log-out and log-in.
I hope password is accepted in system keyboard layout. I’ll verify in a minute.
Or do not use special or ‘moving’ characters.
The original goal to move along A B C D languages more freely as far I understand.
Edit2: yay -S ibus-mozc ## It takes a while but installation is OK
ibus-setup
in startup: ibus-daemon -dr
If you want Hiragana input instead of Direct in JP
in .config/mozc/ibus_config.textproto #engines {
name : “mozc-off”
longname : “Mozc:A_”
layout : “default”
layout_variant : “”
layout_option : “”
rank : 99
symbol : “A”
composition_mode : Active
#}
active_on_launch: True
ibus stores the last keyboard layout. Log-out log-in is transparent, so there is no need for those hopoff / hopon scripts above. Ibus is ‘stronger’ than XFCE Keyboard Layout settings as I see it. xkblayout-state print "Current layout: %s(%e)"
shows the current layout, but kblayout-state set +1
does not skip to the next layout for me. So why aur/xkblayout-state-git?
Edit3: I tried some subset of fcitx5 and if duplicate shortcuts are eliminated it seems to work.
Super+Space is the XFCE whisker? menu etc.
Too complicated for me. It needs a strategy to select the keyboard shortcuts.
.