Neovide: Cannot enter Chinese

[ssxwcz]

os

windows 10 1909

version

NVIM v0.5.0-nightly-4-g2e14dffbb
Build type: RelWithDebInfo
LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3
Compilation: C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2017/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.16.27023/bin/Hostx86/x64/cl.exe /DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /MD /Zi /O2 /Ob1 /DNDEBUG -DMIN_LOG_LEVEL=3 /W3 -D_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS -D_CRT_NONSTDC_NO_DEPRECATE -DWIN32 -D_WIN32_WINNT=0x0600 -DINCLUDE_GENERATED_DECLARATIONS -DUTF8PROC_STATIC -DNVIM_MSGPACK_HAS_FLOAT32 -DNVIM_UNIBI_HAS_VAR_FROM -IC:/projects/neovim/build/config -IC:/projects/neovim/src -IC:/projects/nvim-deps/usr/include -IC:/projects/neovim/build/src/nvim/auto -IC:/projects/neovim/build/include
Compiled by appveyor@APPVYR-WIN

Features: -acl +iconv +tui
See ":help feature-compile"

system vimrc file: "$VIM\sysinit.vim"
fall-back for $VIM: "C:/Program Files/nvim/share/nvim"

Run :checkhealth for more info

[Kethku]

Unfortunately I know exactly zero about how chinese characters are input into windows, let alone input into a winit app. If this is going to land, I will need help.

[ssxwcz]

I do n’t know anything about rust, I ’m sorry I ca n’t help you

[ErrEoE]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/desktop/dnacc/input-method-editor-and-text-services-framework-accessibility

[Kethku]

This link isn't super helpful as the ime support has to be done at the window level. Luckily I just switched neovide to use sdl2 which appears to have support for it. That said, just knowing how it works doesn't give me the knowledge to test it myself... So I may still need assistance to handle this.

Functionally the text input manipulation should be done at the vent level with text editing and text input events.SDL docs have more detail

[ssxwcz]

This link isn't super helpful as the ime support has to be done at the window level. Luckily I just switched neovide to use sdl2 which appears to have support for it. That said, just knowing how it works doesn't give me the knowledge to test it myself... So I may still need assistance to handle this.

Functionally the text input manipulation should be done at the vent level with text editing and text input events.SDL docs have more detail

Hello, I upgraded to the latest version and tested Chinese input, already supported the input Chinese, but the candidate box for the Chinese input method cannot be displayed.

In addition, I found a more serious bug, when I switch input method, the input value will become like this

[Kethku]

@ssxwcz the D means you have the gui key held down. In the case of windows that means the windows key. I'm not sure why that is being reported as held down when you switch languages...

[Kethku]

Could you run with the --log commandline argument and upload the log file that gets generated after reproing the bug?

[ssxwcz]

Could you run with the --log commandline argument and upload the log file that gets generated after reproing the bug?

neovide_rCURRENT.log

[Kethku]

Thats very weird. Can you list the exact steps in which order you do them? And also which keyboard layout you switch from and which you switch to? This looks atm like a bug in sdl...

[ssxwcz]

This happens when I open a file in the neovide and switch from Microsoft American keyboard to any input method,
I am using win space shortcut to switch the input method And when I use the shift Alt key switch input method, that doesn't happen

[Kethku]

if you tap the windows key afterward does it fix itself?

[ssxwcz]

Yes, when I hit the Windows key again, it will return to normal

[Kethku]

Ok I think I understand what is going on.

[Kethku]

I think the jump to the input window causes sdl to miss when the windows key modifier gets unpressed.

[Kethku]

The strange bit is that it just inputs the D as though it isn't a modifier...

[Kethku]

Unfortunately I can't reproduce this error with the D key. That said, I haven't actually seen any request for it. So I will remove it.

[Kethku]

Done. Try again?

[Kethku]

@ssxwcz

[ddadaal]

Hello I just tested the commit (3cfab0b) and found that \

However the candidates box of input methods still does not show, and the characters does not disappear when a word is selected.

What should have happened:

The IME used here is the Windows 10's built-in Microsoft Pinyin. Haven't tested other IMEs though.

[Kethku]

Ok. I think I know how to do this. I will have to add support for the TextEditing events in SDL2. To get the text to show up I will use a special overlay with black background and white text at the cursor location. During a text editing operation the input characters will get printed out to the right of the cursor, and once a given textedit is confirmed, it will trigger the insert into neovim itself.

Does this sound reasonable to you? Having never used IME in windows before, I don't know what is the best strategy here.

[Kethku]

Alternatively it seems like the windows IME candidate box might be a better UI? What is your recommendation?

[ddadaal]

I am sorry I don't have any experience on text editing stuff, but in my opinion your solution makes good sense. Also, the nvim-qt has a similar behavior and it works fine.

As for the candidate box, I just did a quick research on the Internet and found it might be the problem of SDL itself. There is a relatively new thread on SDL discourse talking about IME candidate box and there is no solution provided yet. Perhaps there is no way rather than waiting for SDL to fix this?

[pickfire]

@ddadaal I believe you mean preedit area rather than candidate box. The one that you showed is on-the-spot preedit which is rare on linux (for me), usually people use over-the-spot preedit method.

[l1nxy]

@Kethku Do you start support IME? i want to contribute and maybe i can fix this bug.

Alternatively it seems like the windows IME candidate box might be a better UI? What is your recommendation?

I dont how to make windows ime candidate box display with sdl2. it seems catch the ime event?

[Kethku]

I have not started on it really. I would be happy if someone would take on fixing it though. SDL2 does seem to support the feature at least partially. Docs for the feature are here: https://wiki.libsdl.org/Tutorials/TextInput and I believe it should be pretty similar in the rust bindings.

[l1nxy]

I have not started on it really. I would be happy if someone would take on fixing it though. SDL2 does seem to support the feature at least partially. Docs for the feature are here: https://wiki.libsdl.org/Tutorials/TextInput and I believe it should be pretty similar in the rust bindings.

There is some problem with SDL2 IME event, because neovide catch all key input by key_down event ,but if we input by IME,it will produce key_down event and text_input event both. so i think we could not deal all input by key_down, or maybe we need a trigger to control input event, it could not always active but it should be opened when user swith some non-english IME.
If neovode deal input event by text_input event ,some function key and modifier key can't work. so i think we need make a
perfect solution; it can deal all modifier key input and textinput.
The conclusion is we need deal all key input and distinguish it that is a normal key input or IME input.
If you have any question or solution ,plz tell me.
Thank you,:)

[l1nxy]

Maybe we can open textinput event when neovide switch to insert mode, and close textinput evnet when quit insert mode. do you guys have any idea?

[pickfire]

@l1nxy I think it is better to ping people that write IME. I had change some code in the past regarding interfacing with IME but it's in linux, I bet other platforms are different.

There is multiple ways, some method (over-the-spot preedit area) is not favorable in other operating system like osx but it is still quite common to see them in linux.

[Kethku]

Another option would be to revive the winit windowing system and see if it's support of ime is better

[uhuntu]

I am running ubuntu 20.04, but I even can not switch IME to enter chinese

[pickfire]

@uhuntu Are you using gnome wayland or gnome xorg?

[uhuntu]

@uhuntu Are you using gnome wayland or gnome xorg?

xorg

[Kethku]

I have confirmed that IME is not supported today in winit. This bodes poorly :(

[j4qfrost]

There's one function that exists to set the location of the IME box, but yea not much else.

[uhuntu]

348

[uhuntu]

I think I found the root cause. https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/7914

So the command line would be:

cargo run -Z features=itarget

[Kethku]

I'm not sure I understand how this relates to the IME problem

[uhuntu]

You can see the PR I closed here: #350

The major trouble is the below statement run in Linux!

[target.'cfg(windows)'.dependencies]
winapi = { version = "0.3.8", features = ["winuser"] }
sdl2-sys = { version = "0.34", default-features = false, features = ["bundled", "static-link"] }

[target.'cfg(windows)'.build-dependencies]
winres = "0.1.11"
sdl2-sys = { version = "0.34", default-features = false, features = ["bundled", "static-link"] }

After studying the thread here: https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/issues/1197
I realized that actually it was a long term bug.

In linux, if it go with features = ["bundled", "static-link"], the IME would not show.

[j4qfrost]

Can you confirm that your changes enable IME to show? @Kethku I had previously removed the sdl2-sys build dependency, because I was having issues building with arch, but the removal is unnecessary, since you can fix it with CFLAGS=-fcommon. It was more an annoyance than a real bug. Is this an issue for Windows? I didn't notice because the CI was green.

[uhuntu]

https://github.com/Rust-SDL2/rust-sdl2/pull/1025

[Kethku]

On windows building sdl2 requires significant build tools which are not readily available on all machines. Further installing them breaks some other projects in my experience. So I had included the build dependency for static linking as a way to get around this.

Sounds like the issue on other platforms is getting fixed?

[uhuntu]

Yes, there is a bug in SDL 2.0.10 https://github.com/Rust-SDL2/rust-sdl2/pull/1025#issuecomment-690712394

[uhuntu]

Some interesting readings:

https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/ime-input-method-editor-planning/16334/6
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31219331/cannot-turn-on-input-method-on-a-sdl2-created-window
https://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3421
https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/can-i-use-sdl-disable-windows-ime-and-ignore-other-input-at-the-same-time-without-hacks/24468

[Kethku]

This is very unfortunate :(

[uhuntu]

We will see if we can finally figure it out by glfw https://github.com/aclysma/skulpin/tree/glfw

[uhuntu]

[uhuntu]

Yeah, we almost get it done :)

[uhuntu]

https://github.com/uhuntu/neovide/tree/glfw is WIP

[uhuntu]

https://github.com/Kethku/neovide/pull/383

[Kethku]

closing in favor of https://github.com/Kethku/neovide/issues/445