Input Language

[William Jon McCann <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Hi folks,

As all of you know by now we are redesigning how the System Settings
work for GNOME 3.  Been documenting that process here:
http://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings

One goal is to provide access to system settings in a consistent and
coherent way.  And integrate and streamline similar settings where
possible.  As opposed to the GNOME 2 way of each separate code module
having its own separate settings window (which leaks implementation
details to the user.

This brings us to the point.  We'd like to have a single place to
access and change region/locale/language related settings:
http://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/RegionAndLanguage

One aspect of this is making xkb keyboard layout selection and ibus
input methods bestest friends.  And I think we'll need to all work
together to make that happen.

I've had discussions with all of you already and it sounds like we
don't have any major objections to this, which is great.  Now we need
to find a way forward.

Ok now to get a discussion and some coding going.

I think we agreed on a few things:

 * Integrating keyboard layouts and input methods
 * Integrating imsettings preferences into the GNOME control center
 * Possibly integrating the imsettings framework into GNOME settings daemon
 * Depending on iBus for input method handling (used by all major distros)

Where I think we need some discussion is, do we?:

 1. add xkb / keyboard layout support to iBus and just use iBus APIs
from gnome-settings-daemon and control-center
 2. merge xkb and input methods at the presentation layer and use
existing xkb and iBus APIs

Conversations with some of you suggest the best way forward is 1.

Another item to decide upon is what character we can use to identify
each item in the menu.  I think Jens Petersen was going to look into
this.

What else do we need to decide before we start writing code?

Thanks,
Jon