The ibus input method cannot be used in some flatpak applications - kinoite

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The ibus input method runs normally, but cannot input Chinese in some flatpak applications
Known unsupported applications include: brave, joplin

thanks for your help

Operating System: Fedora Linux 39
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.10
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.113.0
Qt Version: 5.15.11
Kernel Version: 6.6.11-200.fc39.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12400F
Memory: 62.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NV168
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: H610M H DDR4
System Version: -CF

2

Kinoite (KDE): Chinese character input using fcitx5 works, as long as the system settings → virtual keyboard is set to fcitx5.
Silverblue (GNOME): Chinese character input works out of the box.

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3

Thanks for the reply, I first installed the flatpak version of fcitx5 before, but it didn’t work, then I installed fcitx5 with rpm-ostree, it still didn’t work, maybe it was a bad profile, I deleted the fcitx5 config file now, installed it again with rpm-ostree, and this time it worked

rpm-ostree install fcitx5

rpm-ostree install fcitx5-autostart

rpm-ostree install fcitx5-chinese-addons

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4

I recently learned that fcitx5-autostart is not needed for KDE and can interfere with the themes of addons in Flatpak apps running on Wayland. It’s better to either uninstall fcitx5-autostart or modify the environment variable in /etc/profile.d/fcitx5.sh.

This issue is also in fcitx5 github repo.

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5

Did you also need to change any settings? I also rpm-ostree installed these packages but still doesn’t work

6

You may need to add your language in System Settings → Regional Settings → Input Method.
Also, set Fcitx 5 in System Settings → Input Devices → Virtual Keyboard.

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The odd is my Regional Settings doesn’t have an Input Method entry. It only have three sub-menu:

  • Region & Language
  • Spell Check
  • Date & Time

(System info: Kinoite 39)

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Check whether kcm-fcitx5 is installed if the setting appears to be missing. You can install it using

rpm-ostree install kcm-fcitx5

Then, reboot your system. The setting should be there.

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                  Version: 39.20240406.0 (2024-04-06T16:51:43Z)
          LayeredPackages: fcitx5 fcitx5-chinese-addons kcm-fcitx5
                Initramfs: regenerate

Ok, the setting is here now and I can see Chinese is added. I assume the Keyboard - Chinese should be placed under Input Method On? Then the Keyboard - English (US) is automatically bumped into Input Method Off. In either case it still doesn’t work.

Also, I saw both Fcitx 5 and Fcitx 5 Wayland Launcher (E... in Virtual Keyboard

10

No, the Keyboard - Chinese is merely a keyboard layout provided by KDE and is not what you need. Instead, you should add one of the input methods from fcitx5.

image

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Mine has one Pinyin method, though it still doesn’t work.

Screenshot_20240407_152909
Screenshot_20240407_152909705×481 38.7 KB

Screenshot_20240407_153014
Screenshot_20240407_153014597×1132 113 KB

Screenshot_20240407_153641
Screenshot_20240407_1536411711×403 77.6 KB

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Nvm. It works now. I had to disable Only Show Current Language

Thanks!

Edit: it works in Kate but not Chrome…

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In this case, it might be better if you can create a separate post about the issue related to Chrome or election-based applications.

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Additional info in case future people are interested -
It is possible to install Chinese input method via flatpak+distrobox only, without the need of layering rpm-ostree. The only package flathub doesn’t have is fcitx5-config-qt, which can be acquired by dnf install fcitx5-configtool in distrobox, then exported to host.

The input method has been tested to be functional in Kate, with the caveat of the popup candidate windows always on the upper left corner instead of following cursor. This is a known limitation of Wayland[1].

The IME needs further tweaking in Chrome tho. Adding the --enable-wayland-ime arg according to the old document doesn’t work anymore. This info needs update

  1. https://fcitx-im.org/wiki/Using_Fcitx_5_on_Wayland ↩︎