This project implements support for using ChromeOS IMEs over the Wayland protocols zwp_unstable_text_input_v1 and zcr_text_input_extension_unstable_v1. Googlers: See go/crostini-ime, go/crostini-ime-rollout and go/crostini-ime-tests for additional design details.
This is currently under development and many desired pieces of functionality may not work correctly or at all. If manually building cros_im, it is recommended to use a device on dev channel as backwards compatibility with older versions of ChromeOS is not guaranteed.
IME Support is currently limited to GTK3 applications (including Electron-based apps), and only Debian Bullseye containers are officially supported. Known issues are tracked here and bugs can be reported here.
Enabling the #crostini-ime-support flag in chrome://flags is currently required. Doing so will also set the env var GTK_IM_MODULE=cros globally.
The Qt IM module can be enabled via the #crostini-qt-ime-support flag, which sets the env var QT_IM_MODULE=cros.
Configuring sommelier to allow the host compositor to handle Ctrl+Space is suggested for users of multiple IMEs.
From M112, cros-im is installed by apt automatically.
.deb packages for bullseye and bookworm on supported architectures (arm64, amd64, i386) can be built and installed using the following commands.
Crostini users: Please note that these do not work on a Crostini terminal because LXC containers in Crostini are unprivileged and do not have permission to run the commands required.
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2 cd platform2/vm_tools/cros_im # Build for a specific architecture DIST=<distribution> ARCH=<architecture> sudo ./build-packages ${DIST} ${ARCH} # Install the resultant package for your device sudo apt install ./bullseye_cros_im_debs/*${ARCH}.deb
cros_im can be compiled as follows:
git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2 cd platform2/vm_tools/cros_im sudo apt install -y clang googletest libgtk-3-dev libgtkmm-3.0-dev libwayland-bin meson pkg-config xvfb weston dpkg-dev qtbase5-dev qtbase5-private-dev meson build && cd build && ninja
Automated tests can be run from a build directory with meson test. This invokes ../test/run_tests.py, which can also be run directly if needed.
The GTK IM module can be manually tested by setting up a custom IM module cache:
/usr/lib/*/libgtk-3-0/gtk-query-immodules-3.0 im-cros-gtk3.so > dev-immodules.cache export GTK_IM_MODULE_FILE=$(pwd)/dev-immodules.cache
The Qt IM module cannot be easily tested prior to installation.
cros_im can be installed as follows. It is recommended to uninstall the cros-im apt package prior to doing this to avoid unexpected behaviour.
meson configure --prefix /usr && sudo meson install