Advanced input methods in 17.10/18.04

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

unity-control-center supports both IBus and Fcitx. While IBus is 
launched by default for most users, Fcitx is the default IM framework 
for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese (CJKV). Thus, if you select 
a CJKV language when installing Ubuntu, Fcitx is the IM framework in use 
at first login.

gnome-control-center (g-c-c) only supports IBus, and in Ubuntu GNOME 
IBus is the default IM framework irrespective of the selected language.

Since the fix of <https://launchpad.net/bugs/1594681>, and even if g-c-c 
does not support it, the Ubuntu GNOME users have the option to use Fcitx 
or some other alternative to IBus. If doing so they need to set up the 
input method(s) using e.g. Fcitx Configuration, not g-c-c.

The decision to switch to Fcitx as default for CJKV in Ubuntu was made 
for a reason. The Fcitx tools are better maintained and preferred over 
IBus by many CJKV users, not least for Simplified Chinese.

Going forward I suppose we have these options:

1. Implement support for Fcitx in g-c-c and keep Fcitx as the default IM 
framework for CJKV. (Does anybody have time to add Fcitx support to 
g-c-c? Would it be possible to have it accepted upstream?)

2. Keep Fcitx as the default IM framework for CJKV, and let the affected 
users live with the missing g-c-c integration. (I can't tell how well 
tested the use of other IM frameworks but IBus in Ubuntu GNOME is.)

3. Go back to IBus as the default IM framework for all languages.

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj