Re: not quite understanding input methods

[André A . Gomes]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
>> Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2021 14:43:37 +0700
>> Cc: Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>,
>>  "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
>>
>> My point (which some will find offensive) is that maybe one doesn’t
>> need to implement input methods in Emacs.
>>
>> If you have Compose in Emacs, it works in Emacs. If you have Compose
>> in XKB, it works across your whole desktop.
>
> IME, Emacs comes with many input methods that are either seldom
> installed on garden-variety systems, or even aren't available.
>
> Another problem that Emacs input methods solve is the lack of suitable
> labels on the keyboard keys.
>
> Of course, if your system has an input method that is also provided by
> Emacs, and you can easily find the keys, it might be more convenient
> to use the system-provided one.

Emacs NEEDS to implement input methods.  Emacs was thought to be used
with the usual US (QWERTY) keyboard layout, and it needs to be used with
any latin based keyboard layout on the OS level.

Emacs lets you have a per-buffer IM, and this is extremely useful!  I
leverage that all the time.  Could the OS manage IMs across multiple
Emacs buffers?  Maybe.  But it doesn't matter, since it's Emacs'
responsibility anyway.

Speaking about OS level IM managers, let me draw your attention to IBus
(Intelligent Input Bus).  Unlike XIM, afaik, it let's you select an IM
per-app (analogous to the Emacs buffer-based selection).  This is
helpful since, as mentioned above, non latin-based IM methods should
never be activated externally otherwise they will make Emacs unusable.

What if I run Emacs on the Linux console (tty)?  I want to use the IM
that I'm used to.  Emacs is a portable program and that's good :)

Also, don't forget that free software aims to bring internationalized
software to the whole world.


--
André A. Gomes
"Free Thought, Free World"