Features/IBus

Intelligent Input Bus

Summary

iBus is a new input method framework under active development which is designed to overcome some of the limitations of SCIM (FIXME: describe limitations of scim that ibus addresses more explicitly).

iBus using dbus protocol for communication between the ibus-daemon and all clients (engines, panel, config tools). Since all components run in separate processes there is enhanced modularity and stability. Client processes can be loaded, started and stopped independently. iBus supports Gtk2, Qt4, and XIM, and has input method engines for anthy, chewing, hangul, m17n, pinyin, and table. Engines and clients can be written in any language with a dbus binding.

Owner

• Name: Peng Huang

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 11
• Last updated: 2008-12-23
• Percentage of completion: 50%

Detailed Description

ibus was introduced in Fedora 10 as a new dynamic input method framework and also made available for Fedora 9 Updates.

Most of the work on ibus is being done upstream by Huang Peng. This feature proposal covers moving from scim to ibus as the default input method framework for Fedora 11, testing, and additional usability feature requirements for ibus.

Benefit to Fedora

It will provide a more stable viable input method framework which will be easier to maintain and

Scope

1. Complete rewrite and testing of core daemon in C and push it to rawhide.
2. Change engine loading logic to avoid using many xxx.engine files to describe all keymaps in m17n engine
3. Update comps to install ibus by default in place of scim.
4. Update ibus packages to obsolete older scim packages (users will still have the option to use scim in F11 if they install themselves).
5. Improve ibus and ibus engines for better features (FIXME list details here). (We need more resource to do below task)
   • Make ibus-pinyin better
   • Add hotkey configure for ibus-anthy
   • Separate tables from ibus-table engine

Test Plan

1. Test updating F10 to F11 and check that scim packages replaced by ibus packages.
2. Organize testing of ibus by native users for feedback and filing bugs and RFE's.
3. Work with Fedora QA to ensure that we have no regressions.

User Experience

1. Better performance since ibus only loads the input method engines it needs at start.
2. Stability and simpler architecture by avoiding symbol conflicts from using C++ and STL.

Dependencies

• None

Contingency Plan

• revert to SCIM as default input method system.

Documentation

• http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/I18N/IBus
• http://www.gnome.asia/static/upload/event_file/ibus-GNOME.pdf (presentation at GNOME.Asia Summit 2008, Beijing)
• http://code.google.com/p/ibus/
• http://github.com/phuang

Release Notes

Move to ibus will be documented carefully under [Docs/Beats/I18n#Input_Methods|I18N Docsbeat].

---