Part 5 - Let's type in Japanese
To be able to type and read in Japanese, input methods and input method editor (IME) need to be installed. For IME, I choose IBM since I'm used to using it. As for input methods, I tried both ibus-anthy and ibus-mozc and I couldn't get the property dialogue for ibus-mozc up and running, so I decide to continue using ibus-anthy.
Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches on the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.
Installation:
Installation of ibus as well as its dependencies and Japanese engine, ibus-anthy, is no difficult tasks. # emerge --ask app-i18n/ibus app-i18n/ibus-anthy
Configurations:
Update ~/.xinitrc and include environment variables to set for ibus.
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
# Use `xim` in case some apps (like Chromium) refuse to work with IBus
export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
ibus-daemon -drx
Then, start the setup program to do some configurations.$ ibus-setup
All I changed was the keyboard shortcuts and input methods. For keyboard shortcuts, I was hoping Alt+Shift would just work, but it didn't, so I changed it to Alt+Shift+space.
For input methods, I added Japanese - Anthy to enable Japanese input. You might have noticed that its icon is different from the default one. This is because I replaced its default icon with my own.
The configuration of ibus should be done now. You'll see a small EN icon in its systray. That confirms ibus is running now. Left click on the icon will show you the list available input methods, in this case, English and Japanese - Anthy.
Changing Default Anthy Icon:
I thought the default Anthy icon was not pretty and didn't like it. So, I decided to change it to my own. After searching for the icon in the system, I found it in /usr/share/ibus-anthy/icons/. It's called ibus-anthy.png. I used GIMP to create another icon and replaced it.
That's all!
-gibb