Input Methods

Input methods are an operating system component that allows any data, such as keyboard strokes or mouse movements, to be received as input. In this way users can enter characters and symbols not found on their input devices. Using an input method is obligatory for any language that has more graphemes than there are keys on the keyboard.

The following input methods are available in NixOS:

IBus: The intelligent input bus.
Fcitx: A customizable lightweight input method.
Nabi: A Korean input method based on XIM.
Uim: The universal input method, is a library with a XIM bridge.
Hime: An extremely easy-to-use input method framework.
Kime: Korean IME

IBus

IBus is an Intelligent Input Bus. It provides full featured and user friendly input method user interface.

The following snippet can be used to configure IBus:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "ibus";
  ibus.engines = with pkgs.ibus-engines; [ anthy hangul mozc ];
};

i18n.inputMethod.ibus.engines is optional and can be used to add extra IBus engines.

Available extra IBus engines are:

Anthy (ibus-engines.anthy): Anthy is a system for Japanese input method. It converts Hiragana text to Kana Kanji mixed text.
Hangul (ibus-engines.hangul): Korean input method.
m17n (ibus-engines.m17n): m17n is an input method that uses input methods and corresponding icons in the m17n database.
mozc (ibus-engines.mozc): A Japanese input method from Google.
Table (ibus-engines.table): An input method that load tables of input methods.
table-others (ibus-engines.table-others): Various table-based input methods. To use this, and any other table-based input methods, it must appear in the list of engines along with table. For example:
```
ibus.engines = with pkgs.ibus-engines; [ table table-others ];
```

To use any input method, the package must be added in the configuration, as shown above, and also (after running nixos-rebuild) the input method must be added from IBus' preference dialog.

Troubleshooting

If IBus works in some applications but not others, a likely cause of this is that IBus is depending on a different version of glib to what the applications are depending on. This can be checked by running nix-store -q --requisites <path> | grep glib, where <path> is the path of either IBus or an application in the Nix store. The glib packages must match exactly. If they do not, uninstalling and reinstalling the application is a likely fix.

Fcitx

Fcitx is an input method framework with extension support. It has three built-in Input Method Engine, Pinyin, QuWei and Table-based input methods.

The following snippet can be used to configure Fcitx:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "fcitx";
  fcitx.engines = with pkgs.fcitx-engines; [ mozc hangul m17n ];
};

i18n.inputMethod.fcitx.engines is optional and can be used to add extra Fcitx engines.

Available extra Fcitx engines are:

Anthy (fcitx-engines.anthy): Anthy is a system for Japanese input method. It converts Hiragana text to Kana Kanji mixed text.
Chewing (fcitx-engines.chewing): Chewing is an intelligent Zhuyin input method. It is one of the most popular input methods among Traditional Chinese Unix users.
Hangul (fcitx-engines.hangul): Korean input method.
Unikey (fcitx-engines.unikey): Vietnamese input method.
m17n (fcitx-engines.m17n): m17n is an input method that uses input methods and corresponding icons in the m17n database.
mozc (fcitx-engines.mozc): A Japanese input method from Google.
table-others (fcitx-engines.table-others): Various table-based input methods.

Nabi

Nabi is an easy to use Korean X input method. It allows you to enter phonetic Korean characters (hangul) and pictographic Korean characters (hanja).

The following snippet can be used to configure Nabi:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "nabi";
};

Uim

Uim (short for "universal input method") is a multilingual input method framework. Applications can use it through so-called bridges.

The following snippet can be used to configure uim:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "uim";
};

Note: The option can be used to choose uim toolbar.

Hime

Hime is an extremely easy-to-use input method framework. It is lightweight, stable, powerful and supports many commonly used input methods, including Cangjie, Zhuyin, Dayi, Rank, Shrimp, Greek, Korean Pinyin, Latin Alphabet, etc...

The following snippet can be used to configure Hime:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "hime";
};

Kime

Kime is Korean IME. it's built with Rust language and let you get simple, safe, fast Korean typing

The following snippet can be used to configure Kime:

i18n.inputMethod = {
  enabled = "kime";
};

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