Re: Concerning Keyboard Status Menu

[Ma Xiaojun <damage3025 gmail com>]

On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 3:09 AM, Debarshi Ray <rishi is lostca se> wrote:
> The good thing is that users, who are not familiar with all the
> politics of free software input method frameworks and engines, get to
> choose from a list of good quality engines. They do not have to go
> searching all over the Internet to figure out what is what, and what
> is more broken or less broken, and so on.

No, you are making things even worse.
Veteran users who are using alternatives engines must be unhappy, even
if they can find the correct workaround.
New users would be more confused. If they want to try something
different , they would Google/Baidu and find some outdated Chinese
documentation that tell them to install alternative engines. (They are
likely to try so because current engines are virtually all inferior to
those found in closed-source system)
BTW, on Redmond OS or Mac OS X, if you Google/Baidu for input methods,
most of them would just work.

> If some of the engines are still lacking in features, you are welcome
> to improve them. Yes, that won't happen in a single day. But if you do
> the heavy lifting then you actually improve things instead of
> constantly working around things that are broken.

Many engines just working well in 1.4 environment.
It's IBus 1.4.99's API change and GNOMEism white list that break them.
I feel that you get cause and effect wrong.

> There is a phrase called "draining the swap". That is what we are
> trying to do here.

I'd repeat what I said in BugZilla: There is never ever a system that
has that hostile attitudes towards third-party engines.

> If you think that an engine that is listed should be replaced by
> another because it is better than the one that is listed, then you are
> welcome to request that. You can even submit a patch to make that
> switch.

No, input methods have flavors. Redmond OS users, OS X users don't
have a consensus of which input method is best. But who cares? They
are more happy in respect to Chinese inputting.

> Because unlike typing and inputing with a mouse or keyboard, people do
> not perceive applications to be part of the OS or the desktop
> environment (or whatever it is that you want to call it).

As I said, Chinese computer users do understand the concept input engines.
Mainland and Taiwan are probably the only regions that there are 1000
way of inputing their official language.
I do have the confident to find out at least 100 input methods for
Windows, if you want to see it.
In Hong Kong there is a input method product that can be found in
almost all chain bookstore, its name is Q9.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q9_input_method

> Do you have to choose from a dozen different drivers just to get your
> keyboard or mouse to work?

This is a false analogy.
Input method are way more complicated than common keyboard or mouse driver.
If you do know some keyboard or mouse driver. Let's measure it
scientifically by comparing source and binary size.

> Input methods and keyboard layouts are similar. They should just
> work. We are working hard to achieve that. We are not there yet. You
> are welcome to help out by fixing the engines and proposing good
> defaults.

No, they aren't.
You shouldn't make such claim before you can type a paragraph independently from
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome