Changing input method in top bar dropdown menu automatically sets it to STelex2 instead

This is an upstream issue. I'm not quite sure what upstream is, though... Two possible options:

https://github.com/ibus-unikey/ibus-unikey

https://github.com/vn-input/ibus-unikey

I decided to build the latest code from the 'two upstreams'.

Found that the true upstream is <https://github.com/vn-input/ibus-unikey>. It has been maintained by the original author of the tool, and is most similar to the version we currently have in the archive. It's available here:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/ibus-unikey

I will upload that one later, i.e. it's too late for 20.04, so it will first be seen in the official archive for 20.10. But I would very much appreciate if you could install from that PPA and provide feedback here. As regards the issue you reported in this bug report, I'd say it's fixed or rather obsoleted by a new UI design.

The 'other upstream' (<https://github.com/ibus-unikey/ibus-unikey>) is a fork with significant subsequent code changes made by other contributors. They intentionally dropped the separate Setup window. It's available here:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/ibus-unikey2

It would be valuable if you could install and test that variant too. It may be of greater interest in the future.

Which one is best in your opinion?

Thank you very much, Gunnar. You're doing God's work here. Basically everyone who's a Vietnamese with a computer uses Unikey so changes here essentially affects all Vietnamese Ubuntu users. What you're doing matters a ton.

Since the true upstream <https://github.com/vn-input/ibus-unikey> is still 'maintained' (the developer issued a deprecation message in Vietnamese a month ago so you might have skipped it) in contrast to <https://github.com/ibus-unikey/ibus-unikey> which seems dead, I think we should go with your first PPA (ppa:gunnarhj/ibus-unikey). Moreover, both your PPAs correctly used my Colemak keyboard layout and solved the Super key issue I mentioned in bug #1872325. That's a plus from me.

It would be preferable if there was an option to change the input method from the top bar dropdown menu like in the second PPA and the original ibus-unikey, it's important as basically the only thing users change in Unikey is the input method.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you appreciate it.

The deprecation message is included in ppa:gunnarhj/ibus-unikey. If you have that version installed, the message is located in the /usr/share/doc/ibus-unikey/README.md file. That message is a downer, of course. Is the project really maintained when the author/maintainer has expressed an intention to step down? See also <https://github.com/vn-input/ibus-unikey/issues/24>.

Anyway, it's good that you agree that we should still use that version for now.

On 2020-04-15 21:59, Falling Snowdin wrote:
> Moreover, both your PPAs correctly used my Colemak keyboard layout
> and solved the Super key issue I mentioned in bug #1872325. That's a
> plus from me.

That's a coincidence. The explanation is that while English (US) is hard coded as underlying layout in the version in the archive, ibus-unikey in the PPAs use "default" instead. So in your case you now have Colemak as the underlying layout when using ibus-unikey. You would probably have been less happy if e.g. Russian had been your supplementary input source. ;)

In other words: That gnome-shell bug is not fixed, even if it doesn't affect you any longer.

> It would be preferable if there was an option to change the input
> method from the top bar dropdown menu like in the second PPA and the
> original ibus-unikey, it's important as basically the only thing
> users change in Unikey is the input method.

The only thing I can say about that is that the difference is just one click, i.e. you need to click "More settings..." before you can switch input method.

@Lê Quốc Tuấn: If you see this, do you have any thoughts?

The maintainer seems to have looking for a successor for a year now; they've maintained the package since 2012 which is extremely laudable.

Also I actually filed the GitHub issue you mentioned :)

This bug was fixed in the package ibus-unikey - 0.7.0~beta1-0.1

---------------
ibus-unikey (0.7.0~beta1-0.1) unstable; urgency=medium

  * Non-maintainer upload
  * New upstream release (LP: #1872319)
  * New upstream location, so
    - Homepage changed in d/control
    - d/watch modified
    - Download location changed in d/copyright
  * debian/control:
    - Change to gtk3 (LP: #1736604)
    - Build-Depend on debhelper-compat 12 (and drop d/compat)
    - Drop redundant {build,} dependencies
    - Depend on ibus, ibus-gtk and ibus-gtk3
    - Add Rules-Requires-Root field
    - Bump Standards-Version to 4.5.0
  * debian/rules:
    - Dropped the "--libexecdir=/usr/lib/ibus" configure flag
      (Closes: #955245)
    - Housecleaning - keep it simple
  * debian/ibus-setup-Unikey.desktop, debian/rules:
    - Install .desktop file for setup (Closes: #956609)
  * debian/copyright:
    - Bump copyright years
  * debian/docs:
    - Adapted to present file

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Thu, 16 Apr 2020 22:39:00 +0200

So, comment #7 is a confirmation that the latest version now is in groovy via a sync from Debian. And as regards focal, the same version is in the PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/ibus-unikey

I'll keep it there.