Google's Japanese IME For Android

The article I "read" is: Google Japanese input app updated with Material Design.

While I was eating dinner, I was scrolling through Google Play Newsstand, as I usually do, and saw the article. I was slightly dumbfounded, as I was always wanting a Japanese IME from Google, but when I initially looked for it (this was back in the days of Froyo/Gingerbread), there wasn't such a thing. I just skimmed through the article and then went to the Google Play Store to look for it.

I downloaded it, set it up, then went to poke around with it a bit in a text editor; it's different than I'm used to, but I like it better than Multiling O Keyboard. While Multiling O may be smaller than Google's IME, the way Google's IME works a bit more intuitively - showing you on a popup where your finger is. More specifically, the popup changes to the character you slide to, which reduces a bit of input errors (e.g. hitting the key next to the one you wanted and "flicking" a different character), and as far as I know, Multiling O does not have this. Also, you're also not "penalised" if you slide back to the centre of the key, which is good for those new or unfamiliar with the "flick" entry method; with Multiling O, it will continually input the characters that you slide over, so it requires the user to be more careful with input.

Themed Multiling O Keyboard, Google's Japanese IME (Blue/Dark-gray theme), Google's Japanese IME popup (Material Design [Dark] theme).

While it's nice that Multiling O is very customisable with it's aesthetics, it's a bit lacking with how it works - not to mention the word selection is very weird to operate, and I've mistakenly selected something I didn't want to while I was trying to browse through the options.

Another annoying thing about Multiling O that I didn't like is that changing back to the English keyboard, I had to hold the space key (which has 日本語 on it), slide to the "Keyboards" button, then select the keyboard I wanted; since Google's Japanese IME is made by Google (duh.), it follows the normal schema of holding the space key then selecting the desired keyboard.

The other annoying thing is that the keyboards are plugins to Multiling O, so after installing the base application, you have to download the keyboards you want (and I think it forces you to install the English keyboard [possibly the language you've set your Android menus to]). Luckily, the plugins aren't large at all, but it's still a bit annoying have to sift through the list on the Play Store to find the ones you want.

Multiling O is okay, but its reign in my life is over.

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A bit of my history with Multiling O Keyboard:

 When I was using the Google Nexus 1 as my phone, I was looking for a Japanese IME, since Google didn't have their own. I first found Kaede IME (I don't remember the exact name), and it was okay, but really large (the Nexus 1 doesn't have a lot of space, and "move to SD" wasn't an option yet) - I think it was also a bit laggy. Eventually I found Multiling Keyboard (not the "O"), and liked it better since it wasn't as laggy or as large.

Eventually I got my Google Galaxy Nexus, and stayed with Multiling Keyboard for a Japanese IME, until about the middle of last year when I ended up without my Galaxy Nexus for a time, and I had to use my Nexus 1 until I finally received the Galaxy Nexus back.

Since I had stripped my N1 of a lot of the applications that I use, I had to reinstall a few things, and while searching for the Multiling Keyboard, I found Multiling O Keyboard, which is smaller, and more customizable. It didn't hurt to try, so I went with it, eventually installing it on my Galaxy Nexus when I received it back and awkwardly transferring over the theme I made.

The "flick" entry method was new to me, and I actually took a sort of a liking to it, even though my ability to read Hiragana is relatively slow - it's definitely nicer than trying to press tiny alphabetical keys when in portrait mode.

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Afterthoughts/More Ranting:

So far, it seems like when I have something to talk about "with" an article, it turns out to include a rant of some sort... I was hoping to make this post short, as a sort of a break from migrating posts from version 1, but that didn't happen. (LOL)

On the migration, it's running relatively smoothly, though earlier, I found that I used to lazily add content to posts by commenting on the post, so I had to go back through all that I've migrated to see if there was any comments that I missed - I only had a few posts luckily, but had one with about 6 comments.

I started with the "Miscellany", "Computer Projects", and "Computer Builds" tabs before tackling the "Linux" tab because I knew the "Linux" tab would have the most content - along with the most chaos of edits (and comments). With the "Linux" tab, I've been working from the oldest post to the newest, and I'm at the third page (in normal viewing order); my plan is to finish the third page so that I'll only have two pages left.

I better stop ranting so that I can get the last few posts on that page migrated.

Cluster Node Part 2 / openSUSE 13.2 Part 4

After a few hours of doing a net-install of openSUSE 13.1 Xfce on the cluster node, I was met with a broken power-saved screen when I came back; I was able to get to command-line to give the node a proper reboot and finally got into Xfce afterwards.

Speed-wise, it didn't seem much different than Debian Xfce live; the only real difference being the included applications and panel applets - both of which made Xfce feel different in openSUSE. Thinking about it though, since I'm so used to using Xfce with Debian, it's not an experience that's easily transferable to other systems because my usage of it isn't very heavy compared with GNOME 3; GNOME 3 is a little more transferable - since I've used it for quite some time now - but when I use it on a different system (Ubuntu or Debian), I can feel a bit of a difference, but it doesn't bother me as much as Xfce.

I'll have to see if I can get the other panel applets installed (I really like the cpu/mem/swap applet), and if not, I'll do an install of Debian Xfce instead.

I also suspended the node as a test, finding out that it only responded to the power button to bring it back and that the integrated graphics didn't like the suspend (the cursor was either glitched or missing, and the picture was either moving or stable based on the cursor's position). If I do find a use for the node before resuming the cluster project, I'll have to be weary on the graphics.

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I tested openSUSE 13.2 on Ziggy like I said I would (I skipped the VAIO, as I remembered it doesn't have any optical drives), but during my sleeping hours, I forgot what I was supposed to test specifically.

I poked around a bit, and 13.2 behaved no different on Ziggy than on the Dell (though probably slightly slower), so there isn't really much to say besides reiterating that it works to breathe new life into any old single-core, multi-threaded CPU system.

openSUSE 13.2 Part 3

Well, since I had forgotten to try the VLC repository when testing 13.2, I had to install it again just for the test, since it's not that hard.

And as surmised, using the VLC repository didn't change anything. With that, I'm officially finished with 13.2 x86_64 for now; I will do further testing in a month or two, and I'll see what happens then. At the worst, I'll be moving to Evergreen, and at best, I'll be on 13.2.

I will test 13.2 on Ziggy tomorrow probably.

openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 2

With the release of openSUSE 13.2, the Factory and Tumbleweed repositories have officially merged, and is now different than how it was before. What this means for me is another round of testing for Tumbleweed the proper way (using the test-bed partition on Triela). Now that I've gotten the results for 13.2, I can finally begin testing Tumbleweed again (though I'm starting from a base-installation of 13.1 instead of 13.2)

Unfortunately, the result is worse than 13.2 - VLC dependencies aren't fixable. According to caf4926's multi-media/restricted formats guide for 13.1, h264enc and x264 are to be installed for h264 playback, and in the guide for 13.2, only x264 is installed - h264 being uninstallable because of a missing dependency. In the case for Tumbleweed, both are uninstallable because of missing dependencies, regardless of VLC or Packman repositories.

I first tried Pacman's repository first before remembering about VLC's, but in both cases, VLC said the h264 decoder was missing; while I remembered about VLC for Tumblweed, I completely forgot about it for 13.2. Though I'm sure there won't be any difference, I'll give it a try anyway.

Cluster Node Part 1

While waiting all 2001 packages to download for openSUSE Tumbleweed, I decided to test Debian Xfce live on the cluster node (I had already downloaded the ISO and stuck it onto a USB drive earlier).

It booted a lot faster than openSUSE 13.2 GNOME live did, but it's not all that surprising. Between the time when run level 2 was started and when Xfce actually showed up, the screen was black and I was slightly worried, but eventually Xfce popped up onto the screen so quick, it was like a punch to the eyes.

What was really surprising was how smooth it was, especially for a single-threaded CPU, and the CPU usage was much better than 13.2 (again, GNOME was eating the CPU). LibreOffice was slow to start, but once it was loaded, it was smooth and used hardly any CPU.

I didn't do much testing after that, since it was only a quick test to see how much better Xfce was (although I used Debian and not openSUSE); I'll most likely be doing a test install of openSUSE 13.1 Xfce to see how that is, since there's no live version.

openSUSE 13.2 Part 2

Since Triela is where I've done the bulk of the testing, this will be where I post some of the new things I've found.

One of the first things I noticed was the minimality of the applications in the list, being only 3 pages - then again, I'm used to having roughly 5-7 pages of applications - with the third page only having one entry in my case. The next thing I noticed was an application called "Software", and after opening it, I remembered that the development team was making something similar in concept to Ubuntu's Software Centre. I disregarded it for that time being, as I was only poking around to see if anything else had changed.

Another thing I noticed was that the YaST2 modules are now in its own folder (labelled as "YaST2 Modules" LOL), and thought that it was nice to have them grouped into a folder, since it used to be mixed into the other applications.

The tweak tool still resides in the Settings window, like it did with the Beta (I think?), but instead of it being under the "System" section, it is now under the "Personal" section.

After that, I went ahead and installed it onto the test-bed partition, opting for ext4 instead of BTRFS, and opting out of GRUB 2 installation (I'd rather have GRUB 2 from 13.1 handle the entries). Once installation was done, I gave the disk to the Dell for testing.

I began setting up the installation for testing by installing programs (k3b, Filezilla, etc) that I normally would have installed, and once I thought I had everything installed, I went to set up the input methods. I then realized I had to re-log, but I decided to opt for a reboot instead.

Before I forget, I had also installed the unico and murrine theme engines and then put my standard GTK theme to use, having to close all the windows for the changes to appear correctly, and I was surprised to see that it also applied in a different way to the GNOME 3 windows that have the title bar integrated into the window (certain buttons became smaller).

Once rebooted, I tried to open Filezilla, but it refused to open, so I used terminal instead and was met with dependency errors. After fixing the first error, I was met with a second error, and while fixing that, zypper told me nothing provides "Firefox- .noarch", and after a bit of searching in zypper, I couldn't find what it was referring to, so I went with the solution to deinstall "Firefox-.noarch". I was then met with a bunch of other packages that needed to be installed, which was probably all the other dependencies that somehow got locked by "Firefox-.noarch", and let zypper run its installation course; afterwards, I was able to open Filezilla just fine, and Firefox (MozillaFirefox is the package name) opened just fine, so "Firefox-.noarch" is just a mystery to me. Upon further searching, I found that it belongs to a program "Firefox", which doesn't exist and is not removable because of that.

The application animation when pressing the "Show Applications" button began to work properly afterwards, so something was installed from the repository that wasn't originally part of the live disk.

The next thing I did was add the repositories for Packman and libdvdcss and install the corresponding packages for multi-media and restricted formats, preforming the distribution upgrade to the Packman repository afterwards. Unfortunately, following the guide at opensuse-guide.org didn't work, as I couldn't play my test MKV file in VLC. I've also tried the one-click solution from opensuse-community.org, but now that I think about it, it didn't do anything different compared to the opensuse-guide.org option. I'm gonna have to just hope that caf4926 from the official openSUSE forums releases a guide for 13.2, since their guides are flawless when I follow them.

That said, I'm actually not going to do any testing with Mei-chan, since the outcome was a bit disappointing with VLC. For now, I'll keep an eye out for caf4926's guide (if/when it comes out) and stick with 13.1 as the stable install.

One thing that came to mind is that with the 12 series of openSUSE, the first version (12.1) I didn't install, but the second and third versions I installed, but in this case, 13.1 works quite well for me, and 13.2 doesn't work that well for me, so it's certainly different than it used to be.

openSUSE 13.2 Part 1

I've done a bit of testing with Triela, the Dell, and the cluster, but I won't write about Triela until I'm done testing on her.

When I went to test 13.2 live GNOME on the 1GB cluster node, I wasn't able to read from the DVD+RW since the DVD drive (from the Half-top) didn't seem to want to read it, and so I was forced to make a bootable USB drive, which worked fine (once I got it to work). It was mostly laggy, but upon further inspection with System Monitor, the processor was also almost always at 100% because of the GNOME shell - I'm sure a lightweight environment like Xfce would be a better choice. If I care enough to, I may do a test installation on it, but for now I'll resume testing with Debian Xfce live (when I'm able to LOL).

Running 13.2 in the live GNOME environment from a DVD+RW seems to be slower than running 13.1's live GNOME environment off of DVD+RW; I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies, but it wasn't bad enough to where I forced to install to actually do the testing.

On the Dell, there wasn't a whole lot to test, seeing that the main focus of the testing is going to be on Triela and Mei-chan. The live test didn't really tell me anything that I needed to know, so after some slight poking around, I went ahead and started the installation.

Once I got to the partitioner, I realised that the hard drive still had an MSDOS partition table and changed it to GPT instead (GPT allows more than four partitions without having to make an extended partition first - while Triela is the only machine that has more than four partitions, I'd prefer to just move along with GPT when I'm able to). Once I got to the last installation screen, the installer failed to make partitions, so I had to reboot into PartedMagic to fix that.

After recreating the partition table, and making a couple basic partitions (ext4 partition, and 2GB swap), I rebooted into the 13.2 installer and let the partitioner carry out the suggested changes (BTRFS for /, XFS for /home, and a little 7MB partition for legacy boot); installation carried out just fine.

Once rebooted (and escaping the live DVD's GRUB 2 menu), I was met with the refreshed GRUB 2 screen: the full openSUSE logo (the chameleon with "openSUSE" underneath it) at the top centre; the booting choices in white text, the head-portion of the openSUSE chameleon to the left of the main options; and the highlighted option in black text, with the highlight bar the same colour as the full logo - some sort of cyan-doped green. I can't comment on the green colour used, but I'll at least say that I hope the monitor's colours are off.

The screen of the second part of the installation came up, but then quickly went away, replacing itself with terminal. Since I never paid attention to it when installing 13.2 Beta or RC1, I can't say when they actually took the graphical screen away when the installer was performing automatic configuration. Anyway, this is a nice bonus, as there wasn't ever a point to be in the graphical installer during the automatic configuration.

The response of the Activities button/hot corner was instant which was surprising, as I was used to the slight lag (1-2 seconds) with RC1's GNOME live. Afer clicking the "Show Applications" button, the application names showed up instantly, but the system had to load the icons; however, once the icons were loaded, there wasn't much of a lag at all.

Besides poking at System Monitor to see the RAM usage (about 400MB of 2GB - about 22%), I loaded up LibreOffice Writer to see how quick it loaded, and I certainly wasn't disappointed, as it loaded pretty quickly (about 5-10 seconds if I remember right).

Overall, it is easily feasible to use 13.2 to breathe new life into an old system (provided the CPU has Hyper-threading/Hyper-transport if it's only a single-core). I may test 13.2 with Ziggy and/or the VAIO, but that will have to be quite some time later, as Triela/Mei-chan are my main concerns at this point.