Introducing OnTheSpot style of input methods

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

Le 28/10/2024 à 06:08, Yokota K. a écrit :
> Dear All,
> 
> I wrote a code to introduce OnTheSpot style in the input method and would like to hear how you think.

Hi Koji,

Wow! This looks like a big advance. I am in vacation and will not have 
time to look at it righr now, though.

> The patch realises OnTheSpot style treating preedits as virtual elements in a row following the advice of Jean Marc (many thanks, Jean Marc!). The caret when preedit strings present is virtually shifted while the cursor stays at the original position. The virtual caret position is transmitted to the system input method so that conversion drop down appears in a correct position.

That looks good, but of course, the devil is in the details. Note that 
you can create a new Row element type if this is useful.

> There is a little concern if I can safely remove a check around Line 1959 in Paragraph.cpp or relax the boundary around Line 762 in Row.cpp. They are changed since uncounted virtual preedit strings can push the character position beyond those boundaries.

I will have to look at that, obviously.

> Advantage of the patch is, in addition to OnTheSpot style, on/off of the input method editor is automatically done when the user wants to issue emacs commands or goes into the math editor. I hope this greatly mitigates the input burden of users (e.g. Window users don’t have to push the cramping IM switch key Alt+` frequently!).

That sounds good.

> If ImHints work properly, more elaborate control is possible but they don’t look so at this moment. It may be because input method editors don’t implement them or they work only on systems I haven’t tested. Only experimental code is in at this moment usable only in the debug mode.
> 
> The patch is attached as a tar gzip file.

Thanks a lot for that. Do not hesitate to open a ticket to follow this 
development.

JMarc