[XCIN] Re: Chinese input (using xcin) and OpenOffice on FreeBSD

[Robert Klein]

Hi, Stephen,

>> Selecting either "AR PL KaitiM GB" and "ARPL SungtiL GB" there
> was output for "ni hao".  But no output of "learn" and "door".
>  They are different in Big5 and GB

That's Ok then.  GB doesn't have traditional characters.

> > Mm, what does it say in your /var/log/XFree86.0.log file?
>
> (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in
> "/usr/local/share/fonts/ TrueType/".
> 	Entry deleted from font path.
> 	(Run 'mkfontdir' on "/usr/local/share/fonts/TrueType/").

> > Is there a fonts.dir file in the
> > /usr/local/share/fonts/TrueType directory?
> NO

> Shall perform
>  # cp fonts.dir fonts.scale
> after "ttmkfdir >fonts.dir"  ???

I'm not sure this will help, but I'm sure it won't hurt, either.  
So you can give it a try..  I think this is not the problem, 
however.  I suggest you comment out the xtt server in the Module 
section of XF86Config  (at least for one attempt).


Following up on your other mail:

1) How to type GB characters:

Start xcin with GB enabled (I could not do this) or use another 
input program, like fcitx.  This is an ugly solution, but I 
don't know anything else.

2) How to start an application with Chinese input enabled 
simultaneously instead of executing the abovementioned 3 command 
lines and then starting an application all on xterm window

You could write wrapper scripts.

e.g. one for starting xcin with just those three lines in it:
#!/usr/local/bin/bash
export XMODIFIERS=@im=xcin
export LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.Big5
/usr/X11R6/bin/xcin2.5 &

and then further scripts for each application, e.g.
#!/usr/local/bin/bash
export XMODIFIERS=@im=xcin
export LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.Big5
/usr/local/bin/kmail &

and so on...

However, if you want to have Chinese input enabled always, you 
can put the first three line in your .xinitrc file (or whatever 
file is executed at window manager startup).

> P.S.  I made a mistake creating following directory with
> "ttmkfdir" command 
> /root/fonts.dir
> How to remove it.  "rmdir /root/fonts.dir" did not work

fonts.dir is a file, not a directory.  A simple 
"rm /root/fonts.dir" should do.  (I know, the name of the file 
is very confusing...)

(ps: my next answer can take a while.  I'll be mostly offline for 
the next week and a half.)

Best regards,
Robert