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Traditional Chinese Solaris User's Guide

Chapter 8 Managing the Input Method Server

This chapter describes the basic display features of the input method server. The input method server (IM server) handles Traditional Chinese input for Traditional Chinese Solaris software. The IM server receives keyboard input and makes the input available as Traditional Chinese characters to Traditional Chinese Solaris applications. The IM server can serve any internationalized X Window application that uses X Window Input Method (XIM) application program interfaces (API) to receive language input.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

Input Method Server Basic Properties

The Traditional Chinese Solaris operating system starts the IM server automatically when you start the Solaris operating system in a locale that requires an input method. The IM server continues to run and service applications that are started and connected to it.

Traditional Chinese Solaris applications that use the IM server for Traditional Chinese character input typically find the IM server running when they start. To user the IM server's service for language input, the IM server should be running before an application is started. If the IM server is not running when an application is started, the application might not be able to get the input service even if IM server is started later.

htt Processes

The input method server comprises three related processes running together. The processes are htt, htt_xbe, and htt_server. One process controls the input method server properties, another controls the population of the input method server (that is, a “watchdog” process), and the third handles input methods of clients.

Usually, you don't need to know the details of these three processes. When htt is started, htt_xbe and htt_server are started automatically.

How and When htt Is Started

The htt process must be running before an application starts in order for the application to use the htt input method server to receive Traditional Chinese input. The C locale does not require htt. If you change the default locale from C to another locale that requires htt, you must start htt in the same terminal window. You can start htt with a command such as the one shown in the following example. 


system% /usr/openwin/bin/htt -if twle -xim htt_xbe &

When the locale is set to zh_TW or zh_TW.BIG5, htt is started automatically when the Traditional Chinese windowing environment starts. In CDE, htt is started from the /usr/dt/config/Xsession.d/0020.dtims script. This script is executed by Xsession, which runs at every initialization stage upon a user's login from dtlogin. This script ensures that htt is started before other applications in CDE.

Using the iiim Server in zh_TW.UTF-8 Locale

The Internet Intranet Input Method Server (iiim) supports both European local input methods using Compose key and Asian remote input methods using the IIIM Protocol. The default language engine is English/European, which supports ASCII and some European Languages such as German and French.

To switch to other language engines, press Control-spacebar, as with other Asian locales.

To switch to Chinese input methods, click the left mouse button in the status aea. The following list of language engines appears:

The following language engines appear if their corresponding locales are installed:

After the Traditional Chinese language engine is selected, you can use function keys to switch between different input methods:

For more detailed information about each input method, see Chapter 4, Entering Traditional Chinese Text.