Getting Scim working in Other Programs

The Scim files are here http://puppylinux.ca/members/Scim/
and here http://puppylinux.asia/members/Scim/

Scim is fairly easy to get working with GTK and QT programs. However, there are quite a few applications that don't come into these categories, and are fairly popular. Anything written in Java is an example, and so is the terminal.

The following notes describe how to get Scim working in these other applications. We will assume that you have already got Scim installed and working in GTK, along with the fonts you need.

Set Up Locale

Firstly, you need to set up a UTF-8 locale. Puppy 4.30 allows you to install a UTF-8 locale from the "chooselocale" option in the menu (or right-click on the desktop). Run this option before you do anything else.

Others only let you install non-UTF-8 locales. In that case, you will need to download and install the locale files yourself. The key is to have locale files that will work properly with the other basic libraries. There is a selection of locale files available that will work with Puppy 2.17 and 4.30 but apparently NOT all versions in between.

For Puppy 3 and Puppy 4 (including 4.30 if you like), select one of these files instead

Unarchive the locale file of your choice to /usr/lib/locale.

Check that the new locale directory that you have installed has the extension .UTF-8 and not .utf8 . If necessary, rename the directory.

Install locale_support-0.01.pet*. This provides some files that are either missing from or too old in standard Puppy, and are needed for Scim to work properly.

Now we need to edit three configuration files. First, open /etc/profile and look for these two lines:

LANG=[followed by some characters] 

	export LANG

In later Puppy versions, this may be something like LANG=en_US.utf8. In earlier ones, it may just be LANG=en_US (or the language you have chosen). In both cases, it needs to have the extension .UTF-8 after your language, like this:

LANG=en_NZ.UTF-8 

	export LANG

Configure Scim

Next, we are going to add a couple of lines to /root/.xinitrc Near the beginning, you will see a line that reads:

export QT_IM_MODULE="scim-bridge"

Just after it, add these two lines:

export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM 

	scim -d

If you have chosen en_US.UTF-8 as your locale, that is all you need to do. For other people, there is one more file to edit.

Open /usr/etc/scim/global and add your locale at the end of the first line. It should be separated from "en_US.UTF-8" by only a comma and no space, like this:

/SupportedUnicodeLocales = en_US.UTF-8,en_NZ.UTF-8

You can add more than one additional locale name if you wish.

Now reboot, and Scim should be working in Java applications.

Install UTF-8 capable Terminal

If you want to be able to see and enter non-Latin characters in the terminal, you need a UTF-8 capable terminal. Install rxvt-unicode-9.06-i486.pet* It has a menu entry (in Utilities), and you can edit the "console" desktop shortcut so that it runs /usr/bin/urxvt instead of /usr/bin/rxvt (If you do this on Puppy 4.30, you end up with two console icons for some reason, one for the old terminal and one for the new one - haven't worked out the fix yet.)

You'll find that the new terminal has a bright pink background. To change this, edit the file /root/.Xdefaults. Look for the line:

URxvt.background: "white smoke"

and change it from "white smoke" to just white without any quotation marks. If you are running one of the Puppy 4 series with white text in the terminal, choose black instead. (If you want to try some other colours, there are lots of choices in the file /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Use the ones without spaces in them, such as LightSlateGray.)

A useful debugging hint if things aren't working right: if non-Latin characters display as question marks ?????? in the terminal, something is wrong with the locale settings. If on the other hand you get boxes, then you need to install a font.

*locale_support-0.01.pet and rxvt-unicode-9.06-i486.pet can be downloaded

PuppyLinux : MakeScimWorkWithJavaAndTerminal

Revision [4513]

Getting Scim working in Other Programs

Set Up Locale

Configure Scim

Install UTF-8 capable Terminal

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