[Pkg-ime-devel] Bug#708149: fcitx: latin input cannot be activated

[Drew Parsons]

Package: fcitx
Version: 1:4.2.7-2
Severity: normal

There seem to be some usability problems with fcitx [1].   After
installing, for instance, fcitx-googlepinyin, the Chinese input works
fine but plain latin (English) input is no longer accessible.

The documentation seems to refer to a need to have some "Keyboard"
entry in the input method list, but no much entry can be found in the
Configuration Tool.  Shouldn't it (the normal X/Gnome keyboard) be
included automatically anyway?  This is on Gnome 3 (gnome-shell
3.4.2-7)

The workaround is to shutdown fcitx, which is not so useful.

Thanks,
Drew

[1] If a "default" installation is done, just installing fcitx alone,
then no input method is installed at all.  So it appears to a dumb
casual user as though fcitx is just broken. It would be better if some
input methods were installed, perhaps as a Recommends.  Of course fcitx
does not know if you want Korean, Japanese or Chinese input (and which
version of them).  Would a better default be to install the most
common input method of each language?   

I think the comparison could be made with xserver-xorg, which installs
all video drivers via xserver-xorg-video-all, unless a user specifies a
specific one (which provides xserver-xorg-video).  By analogy, fcitx
could Depends: fcitx-input-method-common | fcitx-input-method.
fcitx-input-method-common would be a dummy package that depends on
selected common methods, while each separate method would 
Provides: fcitx-input-method.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.8-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages fcitx depends on:
ii  fcitx-bin      1:4.2.7-2
ii  fcitx-data     1:4.2.7-2
ii  fcitx-modules  1:4.2.7-2

Versions of packages fcitx recommends:
ii  fcitx-config-gtk       0.4.6-3
ii  fcitx-frontend-all     1:4.2.7-2
ii  fcitx-ui-classic       1:4.2.7-2
ii  im-config [im-switch]  0.21

Versions of packages fcitx suggests:
pn  fcitx-m17n   <none>
pn  fcitx-tools  <none>

-- no debconf information