Install XIM: Wasta/Ubuntu 14

Wasta 14 and Ubuntu 14

When Installing Wasta, It seems that you can choose a Cameroon keyboard as your default keyboard.  Unfortunately, as two keyboard managers XIM and IBUS are in conflict, you will not see the Cameroon Keyboard option when it boots up and it will not be enabled.

To Use the Cameroon Keyboard, you either need to tell IBUS to use system keyboards. This means that you will not be able to use KMFL (Which is based in IBUS) at the same time.

Making IBUS allow XIM (system) Keyboards:

1. Right-click on the EN near the clock and choose Preferences.
   
2. This will open IBus Preferences to the General tab. If you will NOT be using IBus, you can uncheck Show icon on system tray to disable the EN icon (this is Optional). Then, click the Advanced Tab.
   
3. On the Advanced Tab, enable Use system keyboard layout and (if you like) Share the same input method among all applications.
   

Activate the appropriate XKB keyboards

1. Open Preferences, open  System settings.
   
2. Under System Settings, open Keyboard.
   
3. This will display the Keyboard dialogue, click the Layouts Tab.
   
4. On the Layouts tab, click the “+” sign in the bottom-left corner.
   
5. This opens the Choose a Layout dialogue.  Type “cam” in the search box and choose the keyboard you want to add. Click Add.
   
6. You will return to the Keyboard Layouts tab and your new Keyboard will be listed.
   
7. Click Options… and you will see the Keyboard Layout Options dialogue.
8. Click the Triangle next to Switching to another layout and choose an option. I suggest Left Alt+Left Shift, the same as Windows. Click Close.
   
9. If you select a keyboard and click the   icon, you can see the current layout.
   
10. Click Close and Close to exit both windows.

Add an Applet to Enable Keyboard Switching

1. Right click on an empty part of the Taskbar and choose Add applets to the panel.
   
2. The Applet you want is called Keyboard.  Right-click on it and choose Add to panel. Note that the keyboard switcher will not display if you have only chosen ONE system keyboard.
   
3. You can now click on the Flag near the Clock and choose a new keyboard. If you enabled the keyboard shortcut earlier, you can also switch keyboards by pressing Left Alt and Left Shift at the same time.
   
4. If you would prefer to see CM instead of the flag icon, right-click on the flag and choose configure. Uncheck the option Use flags to display keyboard layouts.

Disabling IBUS completely: Option 1

As set up above, IBus will run but be disabled.  If you find that this is annoying, and you use only XIM keyboards, such as the Cameroon Keyboard, then you do not need IBus running in the background. You can choose to Disable IBus completely.  This is COMPLETELY Optional.

1. Open a terminal and type “im-config”. This will open the Input Method Configuration tool. Click OK on the first screen.
   
2. Then click Yes to explicitly select a user configuration.
   
3. Choose xim and click OK.
   
4. The next window is a confirmation. It explains that you will need to restart X to activate the configuration. The easiest way to do this is to Log out/log in or reboot.
   
5. After a Reboot the EN representing IBus will be gone.
   

Disabling IBUS completely: Option 2

1. Under System Settings, click Language Settings and choose the Input Method Tab.
2. To enable XIM, select “None” from the dropbox beside Input Method. As XIM is the system keyboard manager, XIM will be enabled.
   
3. It still seems to be necessary to Restart or Log Out/log on to enable these changes.

Using IBus (and KMFL) and XIM keboards side-by-side.

As far as I know, it is not possible to seamlessly switch between XIM and IBus Keyboards in Wasta 14 and Ubuntu 14, but I would love for you to prove me wrong.  Please email me at keyboards_cameroon AT sil Dot org.