SCIM
The SCIM platform (Smart Common Input Method) provides methods for entering writing systems that are too complex for the usual Unix keyboard handling mechanisms.
Supported Writing Systems
SCIM supports the following IMEs on Linux and other forms of Unix. Although IMEs are not essential for entering text in most alphabets, they add capabilities that cannot be provided on simple one-character-per-key layouts. Among other benefits, this makes it possible to enter accented letters that have no Unicode code points, where it is necessary to provide a sequence of Unicode code points to an application in order to represent a single letter. Accented letters are encoded in Unicode only if they were in some previous standard.
English/European
Adds combining characters to any ASCII keyboard layout, including Dvorak. IMEs are provided for English, Croatian, Slovak, Sampa, and Swedish.
Arabic
Includes Arabic, M17N-ar-kbd, UIM-m17n-ar-kbd keyboard layouts for Egyptian Arabic.
Ethiopic/Amharic
Amharic and other languages of Ethiopia are written in a syllabary with too many symbols to fit on a simple keyboard. However, it can be typed in an IME. One types a base syllable, then a vowel, to get the syllable with the consonant from the base syllable plus the specified vowel.
This is the basic keyboard layout.
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ] ቅ ው እ ር ት ይ ኡ ኢ ኦ ፕ [ ] \ አ ስ ድ ፍ ግ ህ ጅ ክ ል ፤ ዝ ሽ ች ቭ ብ ን ም ፣ . /
The syllable and vowel letters combine as in the following example.
For Type ታ ት አ ቶ ት ኦ ተ ት እ ቱ ት ኡ ቲ ት ኢ
Cyrillic
This is called a phonetic layout, where the letter on most keys is the closest Cyrillic letter in sound to the Latin letter on the same key in QWERTY. But it is not simply a keyboard layout. Letters not on the keyboard can be typed as combinations. For example, the sequence 'ыо' results in 'ё', and similarly 'ыу' results in 'ю'.
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ] я в е р т ы у и о п [ ] \ а с д ф г х й к л ; з х ц в б н м , .
SCIM includes six other Cyrillic layouts for Russian, and others for Serbian.
Alphabets and Languages of India
Inscript and other keyboard layouts for nine writing systems of India, used for hundreds of languages.
- Assamese
- Bengali
- Gujarati
- Hindi (Devanagari alphabet)
- Kannada
- Malayalam
- Oriya
- Punjabi (Gurmukhi alphabet)
- Tamil
- Telugu
Nepali
Written in Devanagari. Traditional and Romanized input is supported.
Greek
Two IMEs provided.
Iranian
aka Persian or Farsi. Two IMEs provided.
Tibetan
Two IMEs provided.
Hebrew
Two IMEs provided.
Cambodian
Two IMEs provided.
Laotian
Four IMEs provided.
Thai
Four IMEs provided.
Inuktitut
Again, a base keyboard layout with combining rules.
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = ᖅ w e ᕐ ᑦ ᔾ ᐅ ᐃ ᐅ ᑉ [ ] \ ᐊ ᔅ d ᕝ ᒡ ᔅ ᔾ ᒃ ᓪ ; z x ᒡ ᕝ b ᓐ ᒻ , . /
Example: ᔾ ᐅ results in ᔪ.
IPA
Keyboard layout with combining rules.
` 1 2 ʒ 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = q w e r t y u i o p [ ] \ a s d f g h j k l ; ' z x c v b n m , . /
Note that the character 'ʒ' on the 3 key is not a 3, but U+0292 LATIN SMALL LETTER EZH.
Example: 'sh' results in 'ʃ'.
Vietnamese
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = q w e r t y u i o p [ ] a s d f g h j k l ; z x c v b n m , . /
Examples:
- 'dd' results in 'đ'
- 'DD' results in 'Đ'
Vowel plus character(s) at left results in accented vowel.
- ' áéíóúý
- ` àèìòùỳ
- ^ âêô
- ^? ẩổ
- ^' ấếố
- ^` ầềồ
- ? ảẻỉỏủỷ
Japanese
- Hiragana (romaji-hiragana conversion)
Typing a consonant key produces the syllable with that consonant plus a. Typing a consonant followed by a different vowel in most cases produces the syllable with the consant-vowel combination indicated. Some syllables are spelled in other ways, in an attempt to simplify things for the English-speaking user.
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ] q わ え ら た や う い お ぱ [ ] 、 あ さ だ ふ が は じ か l ; ' ざ x ち v ば ん ん , 。 /
Examples: kkikukeko produces かきくけこ; tctsteto produces たちつてと
- Katakana (romaji-katakana conversion)
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ー= q ワ エ ラ タ ヤ ウ イ オ パ [ ] 、 ア サ ダ フ ガ ハ ジ カ l ; ' ザ x チ v バ ン ン , 。 /
Example: kkikukeko produces カキクケコ; tctsteto produces タチツテト
- Nippon (romaji-kanji conversion)
Type a syllable in romaji. A menu appears, offering characters to be chosen by number. It is essential to know the readings expected by the software, such as naka1kawa1 to get the name read Nakagawa 中川. This IME does not recognizes the modifications to readings that occur when characters are combined.
Example: ni1hon1 produces 日本.
Korean
- 2bul
- 3bul (five variants)
- Hangul
- Hangul Romaja
- Hanja
- M17N (two variants)
- UIM (six variants)
and many others
Simplified Chinese
- Cangjie (two variants)
- Erbi
- Erbi-QS
- Pinyin (many variants)
- Quick (two variants)
- Wubi
- Ziranma
Traditional Chinese
- Wu
- Array30
- CNS11643
- Cangjie
- Cangjie 3
- Cangjie 5
- Canton HK
- Cantonese Pinyin
- Chewing
- Dayi3
- EasyBig
- Jyutping
- Quick
- Simplex
- Stroke 5
- ZhuYin
- ZhuYin Big
Installation and Activation
The configuration scripts in the SCIM package doesn't work on XO. Put the followings into ~olpc/.xinitrc to activate SCIM during Sugar start-up.
export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim scim -d
Since there's no system tray in Sugar, SCIM can be called by pressing Ctrl+Space. Different keyboard layouts can be chosen from the SCIM bar.
SCIM on the XO
In some builds, XO software includes SCIM. Open a Write session, then right-click in the text area to get a menu that includes SCIM IMEs. More recently, you have to install SCIM manually.
Installing SCIM
SCIM is in the Fedora 7 repository which XO is based on. There should be no further configuration needed. Check if the following repository section is in /etc/yum.conf.
[Fedora7] name=fedora7 baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/releases/7/Fedora/i386/ gpgcheck=0
As root in a terminal, type
yum install scim
You may want to add scim to an appropriate startup script.
Installing SCIM IMEs
Similarly for the desired IME packages:
scim-1.4.5-21.fc7.i386.rpm scim-anthy-1.2.4-1.fc7.i386.rpm scim-chewing-0.3.1-9.fc7.i386.rpm scim-bridge-0.4.10-1.fc7.i386.rpm scim-bridge-gtk-0.4.10-1.fc7.i.386.rpm scim-bridge-qt-0.4.10-1.fc7.i.386.rpm scim-doc-1.4.5-21.fc7.i386.rpm scim-libs-1.4.5-21.fc7.i386.rpm scim-m17n-0.2.1-1.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-additional-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-amharic-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-arabic-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-chinese-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-nepali-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-russian-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-thai-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm scim-tables-vietnamese-0.5.7-3.fc7.i386.rpm
Please help.
External Links
- Red Hat documentation for SCIM
- Chinese on XO in English
- Japanese on XO in Japanese