The Intelligent Input Bus (IBus, pronounced as I-Bus) is an

input method An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse oper ...

(IM) framework for

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

input in

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

operating-systems. The name "Bus" comes from its

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

-like architecture.

Goals

The main goals of the IBus project include: * Providing full-featured and user-friendly input-method user interfaces * Employing authentication measures to improve security * Providing a universal interface and library for input-method developers * Fitting the need of users from different regions and customs

Motivation

The draft ''Specification of IM engine Service Provider Interface'' document from the Northeast Asia OSS Forum Work Group 3 recommends bus-centric IM framework architectures with a bus implementation (similar to dbus). According to the specification,

SCIM SCIM may refer to: * Sample Collection for Investigation of Mars, a Mars sample return mission concept * Service capability interaction manager, a service orchestration component within the IP Multimedia Subsystem architecture * Smart Common Input ...

-1.4 is not considered suitable for further development as it is developed in C++, which usually causes ABI transition problems. Since then, succeeding projects like IM-BUS (led by James Su) and SCIM-2 (led by Zheng Hu) were started. However, both projects are suspended. Therefore, Huang Peng from

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

established the IBus project to prove the idea of IM-BUS by using Python,

D-Bus D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus") is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple Process (computing), processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org pro ...

and

GLib GLib is a bundle of three (formerly five) low-level system libraries written in C and developed mainly by GNOME. GLib's code was separated from GTK, so it can be used by software other than GNOME and has been developed in parallel ever since ...

rather than implementing the functions recommended by CJK OSS forum. In spite of that, IBus has already gained community acceptance, and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

and many Linux distribution such as

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

already have IBus in their package repositories. IBus became the new default input method framework in Fedora 11, and replaced SCIM in Ubuntu 9.10.

Architecture

IBus is developed in C and

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (prog ...

, thus avoiding the C++ ABI transition problem of

<1.4.14. IBus provides most of its functionality through services. There are three kinds of services: * Input method engine (IME): Actual input method * Configuration: Handles the configuration for IBus and other services such as IME * Panel: User interface such as language bar and candidate selection table IBus employs

to communicate among ibus-daemon, services, and IM clients such as terminal emulators, editors and web browsers. ibus-daemon manages all clients and services by receiving registrations from services, and sending D-Bus message to corresponding services and IM client. It implements XIM protocol, and has

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...

and Qt input method modules.

Features

* Engine loading and unloading on demand *

Notification area The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running programs. The taskbar and the associated Start Menu were created and named in 1993 b ...

support on the taskbar * Interoperability with XKB * Immediately applies configuration changes * Provides C and Python bindings

Available input method plugins and engines

* ibus-anthy: A plugin for

Anthy Anthy () is a package for an input method editor backend for Unix-like systems for the Japanese language. It can convert Hiragana to Kanji as per the language rules. As a preconversion stage, Latin characters (Romaji) can be used to input Hiragana. ...

, a Japanese IME * ibus-avro: Phonetic keyboard layout for writing

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

based on Avro Keyboard * ibus-cangjie: An engine for the

Cangjie input method The Cangjie input method (Tsang-chieh input method, sometimes called Changjie, Cang Jie, Changjei or Chongkit) is a system for entering Chinese characters into a computer using a standard computer keyboard. In filenames and elsewhere, the name C ...

* ibus-chewing: An intelligent Chinese Phonetic IME for Zhùyīn users. It is based on libChewing. * ibus-hangul: A Korean IME * ibus-libpinyin: A newer Chinese IME for Pinyin users. Designed by Huang Peng and Peng Wu. *ibus-libthai: A Thai IME based on libthai * ibus-libzhuyin: An engine for the Zhùyīn ("bopomofo") input method (an alternative to ibus-chewing) * ibus-m17n: A

multilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

IME which allows input of many languages using the input methods from m17n-db. See more details in #ibus-m17n. * ibus-mozc: A plugin to the Japanese IME "mozc" developed by Google * ibus-pinyin: An intelligent Chinese Phonetic IME for

Hanyu pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

users. Designed by Huang Peng (main author of IBus) and has many advanced features such as English spell checking. Deprecated and replaced with ibus-libpinyin (see above) * ibus-table: An IME that accommodates table-based IMs. See more details in #ibus-table. * ibus-unikey: An IME for typing Vietnamese characters

ibus-m17n

ibus-m17n is an IME that uses input methods and corresponding icons in the multinationalization database, abbreviated to the

numeronym A numeronym is a word, usually an abbreviation, composed partially or wholly of numerals. The term can be used to describe several different number-based constructs, but it most commonly refers to a contraction in which all letters between the fir ...

"m17n". Unlike ibus-table which supports plain tables, m17n input methods also support states, whose labels are displayed on the IBus panel (language bar). M17n input methods also support surrounding text, consequently, languages such as Thai and IMs such as plain

Zhuyin Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin Fuhao ( ; ), or simply Zhuyin, is a transliteration system for Standard Chinese and other Sinitic languages. It is the principal method of teaching Chinese Mandarin pronunciation in Taiwan. It consists of 37 cha ...

that require this feature are supported through ibus-m17n, as is

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

with diacritics for the

four tones The four tones of Chinese poetry and dialectology () are four traditional tone classes of Chinese words. They play an important role in Chinese poetry and in comparative studies of tonal development in the modern varieties of Chinese, both in ...

ibus-table

ibus-table, developed by Yu Wei Yu, is an IME that loads tables of input methods which do not need complicated logic to select words. Many structure-based Chinese input methods such as

Cangjie Cangjie is a legendary figure in Chinese mythology, said to have been an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes, and that when he invented the characters, the deities ...

and Wubi are supported this way. Officially released IM tables: * latex: Input special characters using

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

syntax. Included in ibus-table package. * compose: input special letter by compose letter and diacritical mark. Included in ibus-table package. * Array30: Array30 Chinese IM tables * Cangjie: Cangjie 3 and 5 Chinese IM tables * Erbi: Er-bi Chinese IM table * Wubi: Wubi Chinese IM table * Yong: YongMa Chinese IM Table * ZhengMa: ZhengMa Chinese IM table

References

External links

*
Comparison of Chinese Input Method Servers for Unix-like Operating Systems

Example for using IBus-Table to create a new IM
{{GNOME Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in Python Software that uses GLib