Japanese input on the command line (framebuffer)

Upshot

• uim-fep seems to be the best option, on Bash.
• Using Emacs is quite possibly the best way overall, even if you’re a hardcore Vim user (like me)

Things to add (it has been a while…):

• Where to place the config files?
• Graphical Emacs has a setup wizard which produces its own config files (even for Japanese input); what did I do with those?

uim-fep

(at the moment I forgot where I was supposed to place this…)

;; -*- mode: scheme -*-
;; Place this file as ~/.uim.  This file overrides any settings from
;; files in ~/.uim.d/customs

(define default-im-name 'anthy)

(define generic-on-key '("<IgnoreShift><Control>\\"))
(define generic-on-key? (make-key-predicate '("<IgnoreShift><Control>\\")))
(define generic-off-key '("<IgnoreShift><Control>\\"))
(define generic-off-key? (make-key-predicate '("<IgnoreShift><Control>\\")))

(define generic-shrink-key? '("<Control>j"))
(define generic-extend-key? '("<Control>k"))
(define anthy-shrink-segment-key? 'generic-shrink-key?)
(define anthy-extend-segment-key? 'generic-extend-key?)

Run this using uim-fep -u anthy or just uim-fep if you have (define default-im-name 'anthy) in ~/.uim.

Also run uim-pref-gtk to get a graphical settings menu.

• Ctrl-i is eaten up by Bash (since it seems to get confused with the tab character), so one cannot set it to use as one of the user-defined keys.

Emacs

I have the following in my ~/.emacs.

(set-fontset-font "fontset-default"
          'japanese-jisx0208
          '("IPAexGothic" . "iso10646-1"))
(prefer-coding-system 'utf-8)

;; This speeds up input?
(if (>= emacs-major-version 23)
    (setq anthy-accept-timeout 1))

Basic usage:

1. Start emacs using emacs -nw.
2. Type Ctrl-\ which prompts the user for an input method.
3. Type japanese-anthy.

2017 update: I am never on the framebuffer these days, but for Japanese input on Emacs I have switched to mozc. The relevant config lines are here.

Packages to install (Debian)

• anthy-el, uim-anthy, uim-fep