UCIMF(1)

📦 version 2.3.8, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 UCIMF(1) — the manual page, bestie edition 💖

okay so you opened the manual for ucimf, and I'm gonna walk you through it like we're texting at 2am. It lives in the General Commands Manual section, section 1, iykyk. Let's go. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

ucimf — unicode console input method framework 👑

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So like, ucimf is an input method framework, and it was literally designed for the Linux unicode console. That's the whole vibe. No GUI, no X, just you and the console, but make it multilingual. 💅

🎀 FEATURE 🎀

the way it just does all of this:

  • Support UTF-8 ⭐
  • Support OpenVanilla Modules 🧚
  • Support PCF, TrueType Font 💖
  • Provide OverSpot style compose window ✨
  • Provide C/C++ API 🔥

ate and left no crumbs fr fr.

🥾 BOOT PARAMETERS 🥾

Lowkey important: Framebuffer mode is needed. No framebuffer, no vibe. 😭

You can add "vga=XXX" to LILO, GRUB, or other bootloaders to let the kernel start with proper framebuffer mode automatically, like it's the main character.

  • vga=785 (640x480, 16 )
  • vga=788 (800x600, 16 )
  • vga=791 (1024x768, 16 )
  • vga=794 (1280x1024, 16 )

pick your fave, it's giving ✨resolution era✨.

🫶 USAGE 🫶

ucimf needs to run under an UTF-8 consle environment, so before anything else, pls check what your system supports. Use locale -a to see the UTF-8 locales that your system is supported, and then use a command like export LC_ALL=zh_CN.UTF-8 to set up the locale. 💜

locale -a
export LC_ALL=zh_CN.UTF-8

To start ucimf with FbTerm, prefer to install the fbterm-ucimf package and run:

fbterm -i fbterm_ucimf

or see ucimf_start(1) as an not-recommended alternate. 👀 (not-recommended bestie, we said what we said)

⌨️ Key combos, the tea ☕

When the user is running an FbTerm:

  • Ctrl+Space — the switch of enable/disable the input method
  • Ctrl+ShiftLeft — switch to next input method
  • Ctrl+ShiftRight — switch to next input method framework

For jfbterm:

  • F12 — the switch of enable/disable the input method
  • F11 — switch to next input method
  • F10 — switch to next input method framework

And if the user wishes to use Ctrl+Space and Ctrl+ShiftLeft under jfbterm, please use ucimf_keyboard, which maps Ctrl+Space to F12, and Ctrl+ShiftLeft to F11. iconic remapping behavior 💅

🍓 TABLE MANAGEMENT 🍓

ucimf uses standard *.cin files directly to manage its input method tables, and per-user input method tables is put in ~/.openvanilla/OVIMGeneric/. 📂

Installing or removing a table is simply copy or remove a file in that directory. That's it. No ritual, no config dance, just vibes.

The order of loading table is managed by the name of the table files, for exaple you can name your tables like this:

01_xxx.cin, 02_xyz.cin, 03_aaa.cin, ...

ucimf will follow this order while loading input method tables. so like, name them cute and they'll load in that exact order. alphabetical slay. 🌈

💻 SHELL ENVIRONMENT 💻

  • LC_CTYPE — use UTF-8 as to recogize characters. For example:
export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8
  • OVMODULE_DIR — to customize OpenVanilla modules location at run-time. For example:
export OVMODULE_DIR=/usr/lib/openvanilla/

set them, export them, live your truth. ✨

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

go read those too, they're the supporting cast and they understood the assignment. 🫶

💖 AUTHOR 💖

libucimf was written by Chun-Yu Lee (Mat) <MatLinuxer2@gmail.com> and Jim Huang <jserv.tw@gmail.com>. absolute legends, no cap. 👑

This manual page was written by Aron Xu <happyaron.xu@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others). 🎀

cute little sign-off moment: this whole thing is from January 29, 2010, and it's the UCIMF(1) page in the General Commands Manual. dated but iconic, fr fr. 💜✨ bye bestie, go set your locale 🦋
📦 where this page comes from