The Intelligent Input Bus (IBus, pronounced as I-Bus) is an

input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...

(IM) framework for

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

input in

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating-systems. The name "Bus" comes from its

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

-like architecture.

Goals

The main goals of the IBus project include: * Providing full-featured and user-friendly input-method user interfaces * Employing authentication measures to improve security * Providing a universal interface and library for input-method developers * Fitting the need of users from different regions and customs

Motivation

The draft ''Specification of IM engine Service Provider Interface'' document from the Northeast Asia OSS Forum Work Group 3 recommends bus-centric IM framework architectures with a bus implementation (similar to dbus). According to the specification, SCIM-1.4 is not considered suitable for further development as it is developed in C++, which usually causes ABI transition problems. Since then, succeeding projects like IM-BUS (led by James Su) and SCIM-2 (led by Zheng Hu) were started. However, both projects are suspended. Therefore,

Huang Peng Huang or Hwang may refer to: Location * Huang County, former county in Shandong, China, current Longkou City * Yellow River, or Huang River, in China * Huangshan, mountain range in Anhui, China * Huang (state), state in ancient China. * Hwang Riv ...

from Red Hat established the IBus project to prove the idea of IM-BUS by using Python,

D-Bus In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...

and

GLib GLib is a bundle of three (formerly five) low-level system libraries written in C and developed mainly by GNOME. GLib's code was separated from GTK, so it can be used by software other than GNOME and has been developed in parallel ever sin ...

rather than implementing the functions recommended by CJK OSS forum. In spite of that, IBus has already gained community acceptance, and FreeBSD and many Linux distribution such as Fedora and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

already have IBus in their package repositories. IBus became the new default input method framework in Fedora 11, and replaced SCIM in Ubuntu 9.10.

Architecture

IBus is developed in C and

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

, thus avoiding the

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

ABI transition problem of SCIM <1.4.14. IBus provides most of its functionality through services. There are three kinds of services: * Input method engine (IME): Actual input method * Configuration: Handles the configuration for IBus and other services such as IME * Panel: User interface such as language bar and candidate selection table IBus employs

to communicate among ibus-daemon, services, and IM clients such as terminal emulators, editors and web browsers. ibus-daemon manages all clients and services by receiving registrations from services, and sending D-Bus message to corresponding services and IM client. It implements XIM protocol, and has

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...

and Qt input method modules.

Features

* Engine loading and unloading on demand *

Notification area A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally as ...

support on the taskbar * Interoperability with XKB * Immediately applies configuration changes * Provides C and Python bindings

Available input method plugins and engines

* ibus-anthy: A plugin for

Anthy Anthy is a package for an input method editor backend for Unix-like systems for the Japanese language. It can convert Hiragana to Kanji as per the language rules. As a preconversion stage, Latin characters (Romaji) can be used to input Hiragana. An ...

, a Japanese IME * ibus-avro: Phonetic keyboard layout for writing

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

based on Avro Keyboard * ibus-cangjie: An engine for the Cangjie input method * ibus-chewing: An intelligent Chinese Phonetic IME for Zhùyīn users. It is based on libChewing. * ibus-hangul: A Korean IME * ibus-libpinyin: A newer Chinese IME for Pinyin users. Designed by Huang Peng and Peng Wu. *ibus-libthai: A Thai IME based on libthai * ibus-libzhuyin: An engine for the Zhùyīn ("bopomofo") input method (an alternative to ibus-chewing) * ibus-m17n: A

multilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

IME which allows input of many languages using the input methods from m17n-db. See more details in #ibus-m17n. * ibus-mozc: A plugin to the Japanese IME "mozc" developed by Google * ibus-pinyin: An intelligent Chinese Phonetic IME for Hanyu pinyin users. Designed by Huang Peng (main author of IBus) and has many advanced features such as English spell checking. * ibus-table: An IME that accommodates table-based IMs. See more details in #ibus-table. * ibus-unikey: An IME for typing Vietnamese characters

ibus-m17n

ibus-m17n is an IME that uses input methods and corresponding icons in the m17n database. Unlike ibus-table which supports plain tables, m17n input methods also support states, whose labels are displayed on the IBus panel (language bar). M17n input methods also support surrounding text, consequently, languages such as Thai and IMs such as plain

Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

that require this feature are supported through ibus-m17n.

ibus-table

ibus-table, developed by Yu Wei Yu, is an IME that loads tables of input methods which do not need complicated logic to select words. Many structure-based Chinese input methods such as

Cangjie Cangjie () is a legendary ancient Chinese figure said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities an ...

and Wubi are supported this way. Officially released IM tables: * latex: Input special characters using

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

syntax. Included in ibus-table package. * compose: input special letter by compose letter and diacritical mark. Included in ibus-table package. * Array30: Array30 Chinese IM tables * Cangjie: Cangjie 3 and 5 Chinese IM tables * Erbi: Er-bi Chinese IM table * Wubi: Wubi Chinese IM table * Yong: YongMa Chinese IM Table * ZhengMa: ZhengMa Chinese IM table

References

External links

*
Comparison of Chinese Input Method Servers for Unix-like Operating Systems

Example for using IBus-Table to create a new IM
{{GNOME Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in Python Software that uses GLib