When invoked, after some initialization (which will take about a few to 30 seconds depending on your machine) kinput2 waits quietly for a Japanese text input request from another client (i.e. no windows appear). When kinput2 receives a request, it pops up a window and starts conversion process. It sends the converted text back to the client when the text is fixed.

Kinput2 has some big improvements over its predecessor, kinput, which was contributed to X11R4.

Over-the-spot/On-the-spot Input

These features enable conversion process to be done at cursor position, avoiding unnecessary movement of eyes between cursor position and conversion window. Kinput2 also supports root window style input and off-the-spot style input.

Multiple Protocol Support

Kinput2 supports several conversion protocols between front-end and client. Supported protocols are:

        kinput protocol
        kinput2 protocol
        Matsushita jinput protocol
        Sony xlc protocol
        XIMP protocol
        X Input Method Protocol (X Consortium standard)

Multiple Conversion Engine Support

Kinput2 can use 4 different conversion engines, Wnn, Canna, Sj3 and Atok. You can choose one at compilation time, or at run time.

Kinput Compatibility

Kinput2 is fully upward-compatible with kinput, so applications which use kinput as the front-end can also use kinput2. In this case, the applications cannot take advantage of over-the-spot conversion, though.

-wnn

This option specifies that Wnn jserver is used as the conversion engine.

-jserver

This option specifies the hostname of the jserver to be used for conversion.

-ccdef

This option specifies the input character conversion rule file.

-wnnenvrc4

This option specifies the Wnn convertion environment initialization file (wnnenvrc) for Wnn version 4.

-wnnenvrc6

This option is similar to -wnenvrc4, but for Wnn version 6.

-canna

This option specifies that Canna conversion server (irohaserver) is used as the conversion engine.

-cannaserver

This option specifies the hostname of Canna conversion server.

-cannafile

This option specifies Canna conversion customization file.

-sj3

This option specifies that Sj3 conversion server (sj3serv) is used as the conversion engine.

-sj3serv

This option specifies the hostname of the primary sj3 conversion server.

-sj3serv2

This option specifies the hostname of the secondary sj3 server. The secondary server is used when kinput2 cannot connect to the primary server.

-atok

This option specifies that Atok server is used as the conversion engine.

-atokserver

This option specifies the hostname of the atok server to be used for conversion.

-font ascii-font

This option specifies the default font to be used for displaying ASCII text.

-kanjifont kanji-font

This option specifies the default font to be used for displaying Kanji text.

-kanafont kana-font

This option specifies the default font to be used for displaying Kana text.

-/+kinput

This option enables/disables use of kinput protocol family (i.e. kinput protocol, kinput2 protocol, jinput protocol and xlc protocol).

-/+ximp

This option enables/disables use of XIMP protocol.

-/+xim

This option enables/disables use of X Input Method Protocol.

-bc

Kinput protocol, which is one of the communication protocols kinput2 supports, uses X window's selection mechanism to notify other clients of front-end's existence. This option forces kinput2 to use selection ``JAPANESE_CONVERSION'' (which is not a standard selection name) as well as ``_JAPANESE_CONVERSION''. This is for backward compatibility, since many of the applications that connect with kinput still use this non-standard selection.

-tbheightP title-bar-height

-tbheightP title-bar-height

This option specifies the height (in pixels) of the titlebar

This option specifies the height (in pixels) of the titlebar attached to popup shells such as candidate selection window. Kinput2 uses this value to compute the correct popup location of these windows.

     Kinput2  kinput2
          ConversionManager  convmanager
               KinputProtocol  kinputprotocol
               XimpProtocol  ximpprotocol
               IMProtocol  improtocol
               SeparateConversion  converter
                    CcWnn  inputObj
                    Canna  inputObj
                    Sj3  inputObj
                    JpWcharDisplay  displayObj
                    Form  form
                         ICLabel  mode
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                         Canvas  text
                    TransientShell  selectionShell
                         CandidatePanel  selection
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    TransientShell  auxShell
                         AuxPanel  aux
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
               OffTheSpotConversion  converter
                    CcWnn  inputObj
                    Canna  inputObj
                    Sj3  inputObj
                    JpWcharDisplay  displayObj
                    AdoptedShell  modeShell
                         ICLabel  mode
                              JpWcharDisplay display
                    CanvasShell  text
                    TransientShell  selectionShell
                         CandidatePanel  selection
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    TransientShell  auxShell
                         AuxPanel  aux
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
               OverTheSpotConversion  converter
                    CcWnn  inputObj
                    Canna  inputObj
                    Sj3  inputObj
                    JpWcharDisplay  displayObj
                    TransientShell  selectionShell
                         CandidatePanel  selection
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    TransientShell  auxShell
                         AuxPanel  aux
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    AdoptedShell  modeShell
                         ICLabel  mode
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    TransientShell  modeShell
                         ICLabel  mode
                              JpWcharDisplay  display
                    CanvasShell  text

Kinput2 application resource:

conversionEngine

This resource specifies which conversion engine to use. You can specify one of ``wnn'', ``canna'', ``sj3'' or ``atok''.

ConversionControl widget (which is a superclass of SeparateConversion, OffTheSpotConversion and OverTheSpotConversion) resource:

sendbackKeyPress

If this resource is ``true'', the KeyPress events intercepted but unused by kinput2 are sent back to the client when there is no conversion text. Although this feature is convenient, it might confuse some clients since none of corresponding KeyRelease events are sent. Also, since the ``send_event'' flag of those events are true, some clients do not accept events sent back by kinput2. For example, kterm doesn't accept those events without specifying

     KTerm*allowSendEvents: true

in a resource file. The default of sendbackKeyPress resource is true.

titlebarHeight

titlebarHeight

This resource specifies the height of a title bar which is

This resource specifies the height of a title bar which is attached to various popup shell windows, such as candicate selection. When computing the location of these windows, kinput2 uses this value to pop up them at correct position. The default is 0P.

OverTheSpotConversion widget resources:

shrinkWindow

If this resource is ``true'', the width of on-the-spot conversion window shrinks according to the length of the text on it. Otherwise, the window never shrinks. If the performance of Xserver on window resizing is poor, you may consider setting this resources to false. The default is true.

modeLocation

This resource specifies the location of status widget in case of over-the-spot type conversion. Unless client specifies the location explicitly, the location of the status widget is determined by this resource. If the value of this resource is ``topleft'', the widget is placed at the top left of the client window. You can also specify ``topright'', ``bottomleft'' and ``bottomright''. If the value is ``tracktext'', the widget is placed just under the cursor position, and moves according to the cursor. However, if the region available for conversion is too small, status is placed at the bottom left of the client area. If the value is ``none'', the status widget will never appear. The default is ``tracktext''.

modeBorderForeground

If this resource is ``true'', the color of status widget is forced to be same as the foreground color of the widget. The default is false.

useOverrideShellForMode

If this resource is ``true'', the status widget becomes an instance of OverriddeShell, instead of the default TransientShell. Turn this resource on if you encounter a strange phenomenon that the status widget keeps flickering and you cannnot enter any text. This is caused by (incorrect) focus management of your window manager, and setting this resource will stop any window management for the widget. The result is that the widget will be totally ignored by the window manager, meaning you cannot move, resize, raise nor lower the widget. The default is false.

OnTheSpotConversion widget resources:

feedbackAttributes

This resource specifies the display attributes of preedit string when on-the-spot input style is used. In on-the-spot style, it is a client's responsibility to draw preedit string, and kinput2 sends some hints on how it should be drawn, which is controled by this resource. The value of this resource should be a comma-separated list of 4 elements, and each element represents the drawing hint of specific type of string. They represent the hints for not-yet-converted string, for converted string, for converted string which belongs to the current clause, for converted string belonging to the current sub-clause, in that order. Each element consists of zero or more drawing attributes, which are `R' (reverse), `U' (underline), `H' (highlight), `P' (primary), `S' (secondary) or `T' (tertiary). You should consult the Xlib document for the meaning of these attributes (see the section about preedit draw callback). The default is ``U,,R,H'', which is close to the drawing attributes used by other input styles.

CcWnn (conversion widget using Wnn) resources:

jserver

This resource specifies the hostname of the (primary) jserver to be used for conversion. If not specified, value of environment variable ``JSERVER'' is used.

jserver2nd

This resource specifies the hostname of the secondary jserver, which is used if the primary server is down. If not specified, kinput2 doesn't use secondary server.

wnnEnvrc4

This resource specifies the filename of the Wnn conversion environment initialization file. This file is used when the Wnn server (jserver) is version 4. See documents of Wnn for the format of the file. The default is /usr/local/lib/wnn/wnnenvrc.

wnnEnvrc6

This resource also specifies the filename of the Wnn conversion environment initialization file. This file is used when the Wnn server (jserver) is version 6. See documents of Wnn for the format of the file.

wnnEnvrc

This resource is provided for backward compatibility. Use wnnEnvrc4 or wnnEnvrc6 instead.

ccdef

This resource specifies the input character conversion rule file. The default is /usr/lib/X11/ccdef/ccdef.kinput2.

Canna (conversion widget using Canna) resources:

cannahost

This resource specifies the hostname of the canna server to be used.

cannafile

This resource specifies Canna conversion customization file.

Sj3 (conversion widget using SJ3) resources:

sj3serv

This resource specifies the hostname of the (primary) sj3serv to be used for conversion. If not specified, value of environment variable ``SJ3SERV'' is used.

sj3serv2

This resource specifies the hostname of the secondary sj3serv, which is used if the primary server is down.

rcfile

This resource specifies the filename of the Sj3 conversion customization file. The default is /usr/lib/X11/sj3def/sjrc.

rkfile

This resource specifies the Romaji-Kana conversion rule file. The default is /usr/lib/X11/sj3def/sjrk.

Atok (conversion widget using Atok) resources:

server

This resource specifies the hostname of the atok server to be used for conversion.

port

This resource specifies the port number of the atok server.

conf

This resource specifies the name of atok configuration file.

style

This resource specifies the name of atok style file.

JpWcharDisplay (widget for drawing Japanese text) resources:

font, kanjiFont, kanaFont

These resource specifies the font to be used for displaying ASCII, Kanji and Kana text, respectively. Since kinput2 changes fonts dynamically by client requests, the fonts specified by these resources might not be used. If not specified, the following fonts are used.

     -*-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1
     -*-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0208.1983-0
     -*-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*-*-*-c-*-jisx0201.1976-0

KinputProtocol (widget for handling kinput protocol family - kinput, kinput2, jinput and xlc protocol) resources:

backwardCompatible

All of the protocols in kinput protocol family use X window's selection mechanism to notify other clients of front-end's existence. If this resource is ``true'', kinput2 uses selection ``JAPANESE_CONVERSION'' (which is not a standard selection name) as well as ``_JAPANESE_CONVERSION''. This is for backward compatibility, since many of the applications using these protocols still use this non-standard selection. The default is true.

xlcConversionStartKey

This resource specifies the key that starts the conversion. The key is a hint for the clients using xlc protocol to determine when they should request conversion to kinput2. The syntax of the specification is a subset of the translation table syntax:

     modifier-names<Key>keysym-name

where modifier-names is a combination of Shift, Lock, Meta, Alt and Mod[1-5]. The default is Shift<Key>space.

XimpProtocol and IMProtocol (which handle XIMP protocol and X Input Method Protocol) resources:

conversionStartKeys

This resource specifies the keys that start the conversion. The syntax of the specification is a subset of the translation table syntax:

     modifier-names<Key>keysym-name

where modifier-names is a combination of Ctrl, Shift, Lock, Meta, Alt and Mod[1-5]. A '~' can precede each modifier name, meaning the modifier must not be asserted. For example, if the conversion start key is ``Kanji'' key with shift key pressed and control key not pressed (other modifier keys may be pressed or not), the specification is:

     Shift ~Ctrl<Key>Kanji

Multiple keys can be specified by separating them with newlines. The default is as follows:

     Shift<Key>space \n\
     Ctrl<Key>Kanji

defaultFontList

This resource specifies the default fonts to be used if the client does not specify fonts to be used. The default is -*-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*-*-*-c-*.

To use kinput2, you should add the following line to your resource file (such as .Xresources or .Xdefaults):

     *inputMethod: kinput2

     setenv XMODIFIERS "@im=kinput2"   (for csh)
     XMODIFIERS="@im=kinput2"; export XMODIFIERS   (for sh)

Copyright 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 Software Research Associates, Inc.
Copyright 1991 NEC Corporation, Tokyo, Japan.
Copyright 1991 Sony Corporation
Copyright 1998 MORIBE, Hideyuki
Copyright 1999 Kazuki YASUMATSU
Copyright 1999 Justsystem Corporation, Japan.

Makoto Ishisone, Software Research Associates, Inc.
Akira Kon, NEC Corporation
Naoshi Suzuki, Sony Corporation
MORIBE, Hideyuki
Kazuki YASUMATSU
Atsushi Irisawa