I18N/SCIM/Wishlist

Wishlist for Improvements to SCIM

SCIM is an Input Method framework and platform commonly used for the input of Asian languages. SCIM uses IMEs (IMEngines to support input for different languages). While it is a nice tool and we are grateful to its developers and contributors, it has various problems, deficiencies and areas where it can be improved. This page is for gathering ideas for fixes, new features, parts that need to be improved or rewritten, etc.

General Platform issues

• (high) startup behaviour/performance
• (high) IMEs should be loadable on demand
• configuration changes should take effect immediately like gconf
  • AkiraTagoh: could watch the conf file through gamin/FAM to detect its change
• improve stability of scim-bridge (eliminate log errors and restarts)
• (low?) helpers should be daemons (eg scim-anthy-helper should not delay SCIM exit)
• (low/hard) able to add and remove IMEs during runtime (or restart through im-chooser say?)
• (low) memory footprint
• (low) able to start, stop and restart during runtime

UI issues

• (high) should only show IMEs for native language by default (for Live/new users, etc)
• (high) should be able to add more IMEs from language menu easily
• (high) input mode status in panel
• better IME switching UI
• toolbar should instantly hideable (already working?)
• (low) toolbar should embed into panel and be dynamically hideable
• (low/hard) ideally config panels should be graphical toolkit agnostic

Configuration issues

• (high) scim-setup GNOME HIG compliance
• customization of panel applet and toolbar display (icons and/or text)
• improve scim-setup GUI
• (low) move advanced options into an advanced section?
• get rid of final dialogue AFAP

IMEngine issues

• Chinese input methods need to support phrase frequency
• JIS2004 support in scim-anthy (to notify jp90/jp04 enabled/disabled to the renderer say)

Comments

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