ime.nvim

Switch back from IME after InsertLeave. Powered by dbus.

Introduction

Multi-mode IME

Vim (include other editors who have a vim emulator) is mulit-mode editor:
insert mode: press jkhl to input jkhl
normal mode: press jkhl to move cursor
...
IME is also multi-mode mostly:
ASCII mode: press nihao to input nihao
CJKV mode: press nihao to input 你好
...

In insert mode, we can switch IME mode to input ASCII characters or CJKV characters. However, in other modes of Vim, only ASCII mode can work: Vim will not response any CJKV character.

| Vim/IME | ASCII | CJKV | | ------- | ------- | ------- | | insert | :smile: | :smile: | | normal | :smile: | :cry: |

So we must switch back from IME after InsertLeave.

Currently, we have two schemes to realize it:

IME inside Vim

no dependencies of GUI
support remote machines: ssh, telnet, ...
Vim passes user's input to IME by librime/dbus
IME passes the result to Vim by librime/dbus
Vim draw UI of Vim IME window
When user InsertLeave, we close Vim IME window.

librime

librime is a library for creating IME.

rime.nvim: written in lua
coc-rime: written in javascript. Inactive maintenance.
pyrime.nvim: written in python. Inactive maintenance.

dbus

dbus is an inter process communication system. we can communicate with an external IME.

fcitx5.nvim: for fcitx5. You must disable fcitx5 in GUI to make it work.
fcitx5-ui.nvim: for fcitx5. this project rewrite fcitx5.nvim to support using fcitx5 in both GUI and neovim.

check if corresponding Input method frontend is disabled in Fcitx5 configuration, if your terminal/GUI support that. Otherwise, your terminal/GUI will capture your keystrokes and sent them to Fcitx5 instead of Neovim.

-- fcitx5.nvim

IME outside Vim

support more hotkeys
same settings as IME for other windows
call IME to switch back to ASCII mode when InsertLeave by CLI/dbus

CLI

Some IMEs provide a CLI program to switch mode.

issw: for macOS
macism: for macOS
im-select: for macOS and Windows
ibus engine: for ibus
fcitx-remote: for fcitx5
g3kb-switch: for ibus, and provide a DLL
xkb-switch: for xim, and provide a DLL
xkb-switch (for macOS): for macOS, and provide a DLL

Some Vim plugins use CLI:

nvim-auto-ime: only support macism
coc-imselect: only support im-select
im-select.nvim: support im-select, ibus engine, fcitx-remote
alohaia/fcitx.nvim: only support fcitx-remote
h-hg/fcitx.nvim: only support fcitx-remote
vim-barbaric: support ibus engine, fcitx-remote, xkb-switch
nvim-ibus-sw: only support ibus engine

dbus

vim-xkbswitch: support g3kb-switch, xkb-switch and issw by their DLLs, where g3kb-switch utilizes dbus and is written in C
fcitx.vim: support fcitx and fcitx5-rime. written in python
This plugin: support
fcitx5: with or without rime input schema
ibus

gnome-shell: you can get IME information from gnome-shell whatever you use

which IME. You need
[unsafe-mode-menu](https://github.com/linushdot/unsafe-mode-menu)
to open unsafe mode in latest gnome-shell.

g3kb-switch: or use it to bypass security prohibit.

In Gnome 41 and newer, the switcher will only work with G3kbSwitch Gnome Shell extension, because method org.gnome.Shell.Eval which was used in the original implementation of the switcher is now disabled for security reasons

-- g3kb-switch

single-mode IME

Editor can provide a popup menu to let user select candidate. If user use Ctrl + P/N to select, input CJKV characters. Otherwise, input ASCII characters.

more key pressing, the 10-th candidation need 10 times Ctrl + N
ASCII characters cannot be near CJKV characters. Many languages support variable names containing Unicode, so completions after CJKV characters will be ignored. hi nihao will complete nihao, hinihao will complete hinihao. However, it shouldn't happen. Because:

中英文之間需要增加空格

-- 中文文案排版指北

We can create:

a language server to support all editors which supports LSP. The editor will manage the popup menu according to LSP.
an editor specific plugin.
register a completion source of other editor plugins which manage the popup
```
menu
```
manage the popup menu by itself

LSP

由于 rime-ls 并不是 LSP 的常规用法，难以要求编辑器来适配 rime-ls

-- rime-ls

ds-pinyin-lsp: only support full pinyin.
rime-ls: inspired from ds-pinyin-lsp.

coc.nvim

coc-rime: written in javascript

nvim-cmp

cmp-rime: written in python
rime.nvim: written in lua

Manage popup menu by itself

Manage popup menu by itself will result in the conflict with other editor plugins which manage the popup menu. At the same time, you must enable one of them.

Sorry, you have to make the choice.

-- coc-snippets

boshiamy-cue.vim: the oldest solution
vimIM: stop maintenance
vim-boshiamy: forked from vimIM
ime.vim: a light weight alternative of vimIM
ZFVimIM: a rewrite of vimIM. It will disable most completion plugins when it is enabled.

Dependencies

# Ubuntu
sudo apt-get -y install libgirepository-1.0-1 libgirepository1.0-dev pkg-config
sudo apt-mark auto libgirepository1.0-dev pkg-config
# ArchLinux
sudo pacman -S libgirepository pkg-config
# Android Termux
apt-get -y install gobject-introspection pkg-config
# Nix
# use nix-shell to create a virtual environment then build

Install

rocks.nvim

Command style

:Rocks install ime.nvim

Declare style

~/.config/nvim/rocks.toml:

[plugins]
"ime.nvim" = "scm"

Then

:Rocks sync

or:

$ luarocks --lua-version 5.1 --local --tree ~/.local/share/nvim/rocks install ime.nvim
# ~/.local/share/nvim/rocks is the default rocks tree path
# you can change it according to your vim.g.rocks_nvim.rocks_path

lazy.nvim

require("lazy").setup {
  spec = {
    { "rimeinn/ime.nvim", lazy = false },
  },
}

Tips

For Nix user, run /the/path/of/luarocks/rocks-5.1/ime.nvim/VERSION/scripts/update.sh when dynamic link libraries are broken after nix-collect-garbage -d.
For NixOS, require'dbus_proxy' needs correct vim.env.GI_TYPELIB_PATH. This plugin will do it out of box. You also can add the following code to run once to speed up:

/etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

  environment.variables = {
    GI_TYPELIB_PATH =
      let
        suffix = "lib/girepository-1.0";
      in
      "${pkgs.glib.out}/${suffix}:${pkgs.gobject-introspection}/${suffix}:${pkgs.gobject-introspection.unwrapped}/${suffix}";
  };

ime.nvim

Contents

Topics

Modules

ime.nvim

Introduction

Multi-mode IME

IME inside Vim

librime

dbus

IME outside Vim

CLI

dbus

single-mode IME

LSP

coc.nvim

nvim-cmp

Manage popup menu by itself

Dependencies

Install

rocks.nvim

Command style

Declare style

lazy.nvim

Tips