IBus 1.5.27 is released

IBus 1.5.27 is now released and available in Fedora 37.

# dnf update ibus

This release enhances ibus restart subcommand for the GNOME desktop session. The GNOME desktop session runs ibus-daemon via systemd and previously ibus restart subcommand failed to restart ibus-daemon but now it’s also connected to systemd by default. The other options can be shown with ibus restart --help subcommand and you can specify --type=direct or --type=systemd or --verbose option.

ibus im-module subcommand is added newly to get an internal gtk-im-module value from an instance of an GTK instance and this subcommand would be useful in case that users install IBus input method framework by manual and they check if IBus is installed properly. If IBus GtkIMModule is loaded in Xorg desktop sessions, “ibus” is output. “wayland” is output in GNOME Wayland desktop session. The command checks GTK3 by default and the other options can be shown with ibus im-module --help subcommand and you can specify --type=gtk2 or --type=gtk4 option. Currently only GTK is supported.

IBus Emoji shortcut key is now reverted to Super-period.

IBus theme of the candidate window can be customized with ibus-setup utility. IBus theme has inherited the GTK themes in the desktop session by default so users could customize it with the desktop utilities in GTK desktop sessions. The new feature is useful for other desktop sessions likes KDE. Note: custom icon on ibus-setup means to customize the theme of the pager buttons on IBus candidate window.

A new process key event is integrated in IBus GTK4 IM module and now Enter and Backspace keys works with GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus in Xorg desktop sessions and IBus engines can handle the new API with IBUS_CAP_SYNC_PROCESS_KEY flag but since the discussion is still unstable, we will change the flag to IBUS_CAP_SYNC_PROCESS_KEY_V2 in the next IBus release.

IBusEngine::focus_in_id() and focus_out_id() class methods are added newly which arguments provide a unique object-path by input context and client application name. To replace focus_in/focus_out() class methods with focus_in_id/focus_out_id(), IBusEngine::has-focus-id property needs to be TRUE in the class constructor API.

gnome-remote-desktop #2

I described the usage of gnome-remote-desktop in the previous article.

While the upstream is discussing about unlocking the screen lock, the gnome-shell-extension is now available.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4338/allow-locked-remote-desktop/

The extension works fine with me.

gnome-remote-desktop

Seems Vino is deprecated in Fedora 35 because of the security issue and gnome-remote-desktop is the replacement but there are a few document to setup the VNC server and let me summarize the setup and differences.

GUI Setting

1. Log into GNOME desktop.
2. Run gnome-control-center sharing and enable "Sharing” switch button.
3. Open "Remote Login" submenu on the “Sharing" setting and enable the “On" switch button and bring back to the "Sharing" setting.
4. Open “Screen Sharing” submenu on the "Sharing" setting and enable the “Active" switch button.
5. Enable “Allow connections to control the screen” check button on the “Screen Sharing” setting.
6. Select “Require a password” radio button on the “Screen Sharing” setting.
7. Type your password in “Password” text entry on the “Screen Sharing” setting.
8. Enable your network connection on the “Screen Sharing” setting.

Now you can connect to your VNC server with vinagre command in another client. If you wish to connect to the VNC server with vncviewer command, you need to disable the encryption with gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.remote-desktop.vnc encryption "['none']" command in your VNC server and run vncviewer $YOUR_VNC_SERVER command in another client.

I also tried the command line settings as I did with Vino previously.

CLI Setup

1. Log into GNOME desktop.
2. Run systemctl --user start gnome-remote-desktop command and confirm systemctl --user status gnome-remote-desktop . If you wish to run gnome-remote-desktop with logging in the GNOME session, you might like to configure Mutter with gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['screen-cast', 'remote-desktop']" command and confirm gsettings get org.gnome.mutter experimental-features .
3. Run gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.remote-desktop.vnc view-only false command.
4. Run gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.remote-desktop.vnc auth-method 'password' command.
5. Run dbus-send --session --dest=org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing --type=method_call --print-reply /org/gnome/SettingsDaemon/Sharing org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.Sharing.EnableService string:gnome-remote-desktop command
6. In case that your password is “YOUR_PASSWORD”, Run echo -n "YOUR_PASSWORD" | secret-tool store --label="GNOME Remote Desktop VNC password" "xdg:schema" "org.gnome.RemoteDesktop.VncPassword" command and confirm secret-tool lookup "xdg:schema" "org.gnome.RemoteDesktop.VncPassword" .

Now you can connect to your VNC server with vinagre command in another client. If you wisth to connect to the VNC server with vncviewer, try to modify gsettings’s encryption value to ‘none’ as I commented above.

I compared gnome-remote-desktop and Vino.

	gnome-remote-desktop		Vino
Saved password	Encryption with libsecret		Base64
non-GNOME VNC server (likes XFCE4)	Not working		Workng
Lock screen	Disconnecting		Continuing to connect

I went to my office and setup the remote desktop feature at office and I do WFH (work from home) and currently I run some virtual hosts in the VNC server and I don’t wish to disconnect the remote desktop session with the lock screen timeout and I have to run gnome-control-center privacy and set the idle time to 0. But I think it’s a bit paradoxical setting – Use gnome-remote-desktop to get a secure connection but keeping unlocking the screen is not a secure setting.

IBus 1.5.25 is released

IBus 1.5.25 is now released and available in Fedora 35.

# dnf update ibus

This release changes the default Emoji shortcut key to Ctrl-period, which was Ctrl-Shift-e previously, to follow GTK shortcut keys. MS-Windows provides Super-period shortcut key for Emoji typing and MacOS does Command-Shift-space shortcut key currently.

IBus compose feature now follows the GTK4 compose pre-edit style. IBus compose file now supports the ‘include‘ directive in the user compose file ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ibus/Compose, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gtk-3.0/Compose or $HOME/.XCompose)

IBus GTK3 module proceeds the key events asynchronistically because some langauge engines spend much time to compose key events and D-Bus process could causes a timeout but now GTK4 does not allow the async events and IBus GTK4 module will proceed the key events synchronistically.

Please note: This release has a regression in the position of the candidate window with GTK3 applications and the patch is available here and you need to apply the same patch to ibus/client/gtk3/ibusimcontext.c by manual besides ibus/client/gtk2/ibusimcontext.c since the original ibusimcontext.c is a symlink in the Git repo.

% git clone https://github.com/ibus/ibus.git
% cd ibus
% git format-patch -1 936a0e76df79d92a8bdc03e9205330fb84a2083e

Bluetooth mouse in dual boot of Windows 10 and Linux #2

Previously I set up Bluetooth mouse in dual boot of Windows 10 and Fedora using a converter USB to Bluetooth because my laptop didn’t have any Bluetooth devices.

Recently I set up Bluetooth mouse in dual boot of Windows 10 and Fedora 32 in another laptop which has a Bluetooth device and the configuration is a bit different.

Windows 10 recognizes ELECOM M-BT13BL but Fedora 32 does not recognize it in ASUS X545FA and I bought Logicool M337 and Windows 10 and Fedora 32 recognize it.
I don’t know why the format is different from the the previous blog but anyway I succeed to set up Blutotooth mouse in the dual boot.

0. Make a pairing in Fedora 32

1. Make a pairing in Windows 10

2. Get PsTools to read some secret regedit keys

3. Right click on MS-DOS prompt and launch it with an Administrator privilege

3. PsExec64.exe -s -i regedit

4. Save the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys\${DEVICE}\${ADDRESS}

My data is:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys\001bdc0e3454]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BTHPORT\Parameters\Keys\c0e434a6159c]
"MasterIRK"=hex:48,5d,82,ad,55,13,23,ed,08,af,46,c7,5e,d0,c7,bf
"34885db3e4bd"=hex:9b,78,96,d8,20,2d,da,a8,0d,1d,bd,75,ab,8e,04,40


5. Reboot the system and Launch Fedora 27

6. Open /var/lib/bluetooth/${DEVICE}/${ADDRESS}/info with root and paste the Windows regedit value to “Key” value in [LinkKey] section.

7. Run systemctl restart bluetooth with root

My modified /var/lib/bluetooth/C0:E4:34:A6:15:9C/34:88:5D:B3:E4:Bd/info is
[General]
Name=Bluetooth Mouse M336/M337/M535
Class=0x000580
SupportedTechnologies=BR/EDR;
Trusted=true
Blocked=false
Services=00001000-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b44fb;00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b44fb;00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb;

[LinkKey]
Key=9B7896D8202DDAA80D1DBD75AB8E0440
Type=4
PINLength=0

[DeviceID]
Source=2
Vendor=1133
Product=45078
Version=4611


Then my Bluetooth mouse in dual boot envirinemnt works fine.

IBus 1.5.21 is released

IBus 1.5.21 is now released and available in Fedora 31.

# dnf update ibus

This release enhances the IBus compose features. The maximum number of the compose key sequences was 7. Also the output character was limited in 16 bit and only one character could be output so the latest emoji characters or custom long compose characters were not supported.
The following is the demo.

IBus can loads either $HOME/.config/ibus/Compose or $HOME/.config/gtk-3.0/Compose or $HOME/.XCompose file and save the cache files in $HOME/.cache/ibus/compose/

You can customize the compose keys with gnome-tweaks in GNOME desktop or any utilities in other desktops or setxkbmap -option in Xorg desktops.

Currently IBus XKB engines and a few language engines support the IBus compose features. To enable IBus in text applications in GNOME desktop, you need to enable more than one IBus engines using gnome-control-center region, likes ibus-typing-booster, ibus-m17n or else. Otherwise GtkIMContextSimple is used and the compose feature is not available. To enable IBus in non-GNOME desktop, you can use any IBus engines by default or customize with `ibus-setup` command.

Also now ibus-daemon exits with the parent program’s death.

Also IBus provides ibus.its file which can i18n IBus component files in /usr/share/ibus/component/ to detect “longname” and “description” tag.

ibus-anthy 1.5.11 and anthy-unicode 1.0.0.20191015 are released

ibus-anthy 1.5.11 is released and available in Fedora 30 or later.
# dnf update ibus-anthy

The default input mode is now Eisu (direct) mode but not Hiragana mode.

Eisu mode now can load a user compose file of either $HOME/.config/ibus/Compose or $HOME/.XCompose although the system compose files has been already loaded.

The emoji dictionary is updated for emoji 12.0 beta.

The ibus-anthy build now uses gettext instead of intltool.

This release now supports to use anthy-unicode which converts the internal EUC-JP data to UTF-8 data and enhanced some functions and the ibus-anthy build detects /usr/lib*/pkgconfig/anthy-unicode.pc for anthy-unicode or /usr/lib*/pkgconfig/anthy.pc for anthy. anthy-unicode is still an unofficial or testing release.

IBus 1.5.19 is released

IBus 1.5.19 is now released and it’s available in Fedora 29.

# dnf update ibus

Also it’s available in Fedora Copr for Fedora 28.

This release moved the input focus on IBus emojier to pre-edit areas on each application upon the several feedbacks of the previous implementation. Therefore now your input focus is not changed during typing emoji annotations, Unicode name or Unicode code points with Ctrl-Shift-e. [1]
Ctrl-[f|b|n|p], Ctrl-Shift-[n|p], PageUp, PageDown, Escape shortcut keys have been available since previous IBus versions and you can check ibus-emoji(5) man page.

The pre-edit area supports multi-byte annotations with your current input method engine (IME). To configure the language of emoji annotations, you can run ibus-setup and go to “Emoji” tab. English annotation is always available whether you choose anther language or not. [2]
E.g. In ibus-anthy, Set English mode and type Ctrl-Shift-e, Ctrl-j (to enable Hiragana mode), e, g, a, o, Ctrl-j (to revert to English mode), Space

In case you’d like to show emoji category, you can type Ctrl-Shift-e and just Space without any annotations or run ibus emoji command. Unicode category is also available from the bottom of the emoji category.

A new annotation “history” is implemented to show the emoji characters which were output previously.

Also the feature of typing Unicode code points with Ctrl-Shift-u is separated from the consolidated features of Ctrl-Shift-e, for who does not wish to show the lookup window of emoji candidates but just output the specified Unicode character with the code point. Ctrl-Shift-e still can cover the Unicode code point. E.g. if you type, Ctrl-Shift-e, 100, Space, Space, both the Unicode character (Ā) of code point U+100 and emoji character (💯) of “100” annotation can be popuped. The both shortcut keys can be customized with ibus-setup utility.

IBus emojier’s lookup window is now changed from the focused window to the popup window not to take the input focus. But popup windows under Wayland always take the focus and cannot locate the window position if the popup window does not have a parent window, the UI is different between Xorg desktops and Wayland desktops.

Wayland desktop:

• Use desktop’s lookup window which shows emoji candidates of one dimension and does not list up the available annotations and code points
• No menu item on panel icon to show emoji category so you could run ibus emoji command or implement a special indicator in the panel

Xorg desktop:

• Use IBus emojier lookup window which shows emoji candidates of two dimensions and list up the available annotations and code points
• Menu item “Emoji choice” is available on right click menu on IBus panel icon to show emoji category

Also pre-edit of compose key typing is now available. IBus uses setxkbmap command to set keymaps internally in non-GNOME desktop so you can show the current compose keys with setxkbmap -query command. E.g. Configure of Right window key with setxkbmap -option compose:rwin. I think your desktops can save the compose key setting. If your desktop does not support it, probably you might like to save the setting in $HOME/.Xkbmap file.

GNOME-Shell sets keymaps and compose keys in GNOME desktop and you can configure compose keys with gnome-tweaks utility.

[1] IBus emojier is not available with liveuser and gdm accounts as I think the memory usage however you could run ibus-extension-gtk3 by manual to enable it, whose install path depends on distributions. Fedora path is /usr/libexec/ibus-extension-gtk3.

[2] If you change the language of emoji annotations with ibus-setup, The Unicode data is cleaned up unexpectedly until you restart ibus. This is fixed in ibus master after IBus 1.5.19.

ibus-anthy 1.5.10 is released

ibus-anthy 1.5.10 is released and it’s now avaiable in Fedora 27 or later.
# dnf update ibus-anthy

The emoji dictionary is updated for emoji 5.0 and 11.0 beta.

This release replaced IBusConfig with GSettings so you have to run `glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas` after you run `make install` in the ibus-anthy build directory.

ibus-anthy also implements a new shortcut key Shift+F7 to convert all the preedit sequences to Katakana.

IBus 1.5.18 is released (Cont #2)

I wrote “IBus 1.5.18 is released” last time and I’d write the additional information.

Previously I could not take the screencast in GNOME in more than 30 seconds and recently I got the GSettings key ‘max-screencast-length’ of ‘org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys’.

% gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys max-screencast-length
uint32 30
% gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys max-screencast-length 0


Now I can take the screencast of IBus unicode typing in GNOME Wayland without the 30 seconds limitation.

To enable the global shortcut key Ctrl-Shift-e in GNOME, which can be changed with ibus-setup utility, you have to add one more IBus input sources besides XKB sources with gnome-control-center region utility. E.g. If you have “English (US)” and “French”, you also need to add “English (English – US (Typing Booster))” or “Other (rawcode)” or “Chinese (Intelligent Pinyin)” or else so that you apply IBus engines to “English (US)” and “French” XKB sources.

Fedora ibus-1.5.18-2.fc28 was rebuilt for CLDR emoji 33 alpha and Unicode emoji 11.0 alpha.

# dnf update ibus