Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input

[Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@xxxxxxxxx>]

Simos Xenitellis wrote:
> O/H Jan Willem Stumpel έγραψε:

> > This also means that when you run scim, the ogonek and horn
> > do not work as breathing signs even if the locale is
> > el_GR.UTF-8, because scim's internal copy of the Compose file
> > is only the "common" one.
>
> In addition, when you try to type Greek Polytonic in
> OpenOffice.org, it will not work. The reason is that the
> default Input Method, GTK+ IM does not know yet about these
> dead keys and does not pass them on. Therefore, when selecting
> Greek Polytonic in the X Input Method (XIM), for example, using
> System/Preferences/Keyboard or adding the Keyboard Indicator
> applet, all in GNOME (such as Ubuntu), you have to do first
>
> export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim then run OpenOffice.org

The situation is very complicated, because there are many factors
which can influence the result.

Yes, it is best to set GTK_IM_MODULE=xim (in Debian, you put this 
in /etc/environment). Then you can enter polytonic Greek 
everywhere (using the xkb facilities) *if* the 
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/gr has been hacked, *and* the locale is 
any type of UTF-8 (with the possible exception of el_GR.UTF-8), 
*and* the application has access to a proper font.

As far as I could find out, with GTK_IM_MODULE=xim,
xkb-type polytonic Greek works (i.e. you can enter ᾆ) in just 
about all situations; I tested all 12 combinations of 1-3 and A-D 
below:

1. No input method framework present
2. uim present
3. scim present

A. text mode programs in xterm
B. mozilla, bluefish
C. openoffice
D. QT programs

With scim, at first I thought that there were program types in
which xkb polytonic Greek did not work. But this is (fortunately) 
not the case. With scim, you must just take care that the keyboard 
is set separately to "English/European" (i.e. direct input, 
through xkb) for each application.

Some uim and scim docs recommend using GTK_IM_MODULE=uim or
GTK_IM_MODULE=scim. It seems this is not necessary; 
GTK_IM_MODULE=xim works in all circumstances.

But with the original /etc/x11/xkb/symbols/pc/gr, with or without 
el_GR.UTF-8 locale, polytonic Greek does not work with scim. I now 
think the keyboard action is as follows:

without uim or scim:

keyboard --> xkb --> xlib Compose --> application

with uim:

keyboard --> xkb --> xlib Compose --> uim --> application

and with scim:

keyboard --> xkb --> scim΄s own Compose --> scim --> application

Regards, Jan



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