How to get Japanese input working on Loki?

Question

I have been trying to setup Japanese input on elementary. After many hours of Googling around and installing and uninstalling packages I have made it work with IBus and the Anthy input method. The way I made it work was by installing anthy and Ibus and then running im-config and selecting IBus as the input method. Unfortunately, once I do this I can no longer type at all on Slingshot. Everything except Slingshot seems fine thus far.

I also tried setting things up with fcitx but to get that working I had to remove IBus completely which seemed to eliminate some important packages, some stuff related to System Settings, so I decided not to use that method. Plus fcitx added a new icon on the wingpanel which is quite ugly.

Furthermore, with both IBus and fcitx, mozc didn't work, which works alright on Ubuntu 16.04. This is bad because I prefor mozc to Anthy.

I really want to use Elementary, but I need Japanese input to work and I can not get a satisfactory setup working.

Answer 1

I just installed nimf for Korean input and it works like a charm. I don't use Japanese but nimf does support Japanese with anthy so give it a try! First install nimf with sudo apt-get install nimf , then run im-config -n nimf , then reboot. Next, run nimf-settings and set up your hotkey to switch input methods. Reboot again and it should work! Just remember that you might need to install gnome-language-selector ( sudo apt-get install gnome-language-selector ) and switch the Japanese input to nimf since ibus is already installed. Hope it works! :)

Answer 2

I was able to get mozc with fcitx working by following this article which is in Japanese, but it is quite easy to follow, specially with the commands and the screenshots.