Summary

• This page describes Amharic Input under KDE by using SCIM (Smart Common Input Method). You will be able to switch on-the-fly between Amharic and English (or whatever native input you have on your keyboard) in your applications.
  
• Since SCIM is a XIM-server, it provides input methods at X-level. That means all programs supporting XIM will offer Amharic input, e.g. OpenOffice and qt3-based programs (KDE). A slight modification will also extend the SCIM-input to gtk-based programs, like Mozilla, without running Gnome.
• The input method is complient  with the Shift-SERA method. (For the different Fidel input methods see http://www.geez.org/IM/.)
• This solution has been tested under SuSE 9.1.

Installation

1. Download and install SCIM
   Current RPMs and source packages can be found under http://ns.turbolinux.com.cn/~suzhe/scim/download.html. Different distributors (e.g. SuSE) already provide SCIM, but in older versions. You will need to install the packages scim, scim-config-gconf, scim-config-socket, scim-frontend-socket, scim-gtk-immodule, scim-server-socket if you are installing from RPM, if you are installing from source, you need to build scim and scim-tables.
2. Download and install Amharic input table
   You need to download Amharic.bin and Amharic.png from this server. Put Amharic.bin in your scim tables directory (usually /usr/share/scim/tables) and Amharic.png in your scim icon directory (usually /usr/share/scim/icons). You need to be root to do this.
3. Setup X to use SCIM
   In your global xim configuration file (/etc/X11/xim, you need to be root) enter these two lines at the appropriate place in order to start SCIM with each X-session (alternatively you can also put it in ~/.xim):
   

   export XMODIFIERS="@im=SCIM"
   scim -f socket -ns socket -d
   scim -f x11 -s socket -c socket -d
   

   (This rather complicated start of the SCIM daemon has to do with using SCIM for gtk-based programs)
   SuSE 9.1 users: you can just get my modified version of /etc/X11/xim here and replace your existing version with it.
   
4. Set up the locale am_ET.UTF-8
   Tell SCIM to provide am_ET.UTF-8 by adding
   

   /SupportedUnicodeLocales = am_ET.UTF-8
   

   to /etc/scim/config.
   Next set your environment variable LC_CTYPE globally to "am_ET.UTF-8". Under SuSE 9.1 you can do this by changing the language variable RC_LC_CTYPE (through YAST or directly in /etc/sysconfig/language).
5. Adjust the input style for qt3 widgets
   Run qtconfig. Under Interface select your favorite XIM Input Style. My favorite for Amharic is OnTheSpot, which means your characters will change directly in your application as you type. The other styles create some sort of a hint window and submit the character to the application after the whole key sequence is processed.
6. Activate SCIM for gtk widgets
   Without this SCIM won't work under gtk-based programs, like everybody's favorite browser Mozilla.  Change the Amharic input as follows in your gtk.immodules (usually in /etc/opt/gnome/gtk.2.0/):
   

   "/opt/gnome/lib/gtk-2.0/immodules/im-scim.so"
   "scim" "SCIM Input Method" "scim" "/opt/gnome/share/locale" "am"
   

   Check if the first line provides the right location for im-scim.so (provided by scim-gtk-immodule package). There should already be a definition for the locale "am" since Gnome comes with a builtin Amharic input. This existing definition has to be replaced by these two lines above.
7. Restart X and try it out!
   Restart your X server and you should see a little keyboard icon in your icon tray. Run any KDE program. Ctrl-space activates the SCIM input and you should be able to select the Amharic input method. 

Troubleshouting

• Make sure SCIM is running and you see the little keyboard icon in your tray bar. Alternatively you can also run SCIM in the shell (konsole) by typing the three commands provided above. However in this case the EXPORT command (and thus SCIM) only works for programs started from that shell window.
• If you can't activate SCIM:
• Check SCIM setup (right click on tray icon). Under Server | Generic Table | Table Management make sure, Amharic is installed.
  
• Make sure that in your /etc/scim/config you have provided the right locale.
• Open a shell window and type LC_CTYPE=am_ET.UTF-8 kwrite.  If you can activate other input methods, something went wrong in step 4. Make sure you also provide the right locale in your global LC_CTYPE.
• Send me your questions, comments, feedback.
  

Developers

• You can change the input style and adapt it to your own preferences by modifying the source file accordingly. The syntax is pretty self explanatory.
• The source file always has to be saved with UTF-8 encoding.
• To install modified table create the binary file with the following command:
  

  scim-make-table Amharic.txt.in -b -o Amharic.bin

• Install new binary table by copying it to SCIM tables directory.

Feedback

• Please your comments, questions, corrections.