ibus-pinyin dependent on most recent other input to have been correct (i.e. US-Eng)

[J-J-Chiarella]

On ibus, I encountered a bug that I hadn't come across (using mostly US-Eng, or Korean hangul and Pinyin through ibus).

ibus/ibus#1912

The gist is that ibus-pinyin uses the most recent previous input method editor as the underlying input method editor for the latinate pinyin (before the string of letters is converted to a hanzi).

This means that if one is on plain US-Eng and then switches to pinyin, everything works as expected. If someone is on an AZERTY layout (e.g., German) and then switches to pinyin, the "q" and "a" will be switched geographically, affecting how one types in qian 全. If the last input was a simple, non-Latinate script like Russian Cyrillic, then Pinyin will not even function.

While I understand the desire of some to have non-QWERTY layouts for pinyin -- i.e., being able to type "zhong 中" on the AZERTY layout using what would be "whong" on the US-Eng keyboard -- the default behavior for every other input method editor for every other platform that I have seen defaults to using underlying US-Eng. This countering voice of make AZERTY pinyin available should be opt-in. The behavior as of now mandates that one will cycle to the preferred method entering characters for pinyin, then switching directly to pinyin. Otherwise, pinyin will not operate as expected or not operate at all if the last input method was a non-Latin simple script like Hebrew or Russian!

In fact, this standard (US-Eng) is so ubiquitous that other input method editors like hangul use this layout. Within Hangul (Korean script) are three switchable input methods -- Latin script, hangul and Korean version of 漢字 (hanja). Japanese script can do a 1:1 mapping of the Q key to the た hiragana, or it can be used like pinyin -- write a syllable in semi-phonetic Latin and then convert to the string to a single Japanese character. Here, the underlying keyboard is assumed to be US English.

Since fujiwarat closed the bug and suggested contacting ibus-pinyin, I thought it would be wise to do so.

For ease of transition to Linux, we need to pay attention to how people use their computers.

It would probably make sense to change ibus-pinyin thus:

1. Have an option in the GUI to use underlying US-Eng for pinyin input.
2. Have the option set to US-ENG by default.
3. Have an option to do one of the following: (a) use whatever the last other input method was that was also a Latinate layout, or (b) select a different underlying input method.

I think (b) would be the better option. If someone wants to type pinyin with the "q" and "a" flip-flopped in their geographic positions, so be it -- but it should be "opt-in" and not the default.

Thank you for your time!