Home · API Reference · Modules |
This document describes the plugin system of MeeGo Input Method Framework. The system consists of:
The whole system is running inside the input method server process.
Plugin Manager is responsible to load the plugins and to activate them. It also activates a specific view of a plugin.
Input Method Connection as the name states, functions as the connector between input method server and the application. The connection handles the protocol and data transport between the two ends.
Handlers are components which handle the input method function. They are essentially plugins and activated by Plugin manager.
There are three types of handlers:
A single plugin could act as multiple handlers.
A plugin has to expose it's handling capabilities so it can be listed in MSettings. User can set a plugin to be the default plugin handling a specific handler by selecting it in MSettings.
When a handler is activated, the following will be carried out:
Plugin Manager selects the active plugin based on the settings. GConf stores the settings of the plugin names which will be selected whenever the handler or language is changed or run in the first time. The settings hierarchy looks like this, where handler is either onscreen or hardware:
When input method server is started, Plugin Manager reads the available plugins in the system and collects the handler information from the plugins. It then generates an in-memory map to be used whenever the handler is changed. The map is refreshed whenever a new plugin is installed or removed.
Each handler will have a list of plugins in the map.
Plugin Manager subscribes to Context Framework events to change handler. E.g. when Plugin Manager receive a signal from context framework that a keyboard is attached or slided out the Hardware keyboard handler is activated.
Plugin Manager then tries to find the plugin from the Settings, and if it fails it tries to find it from the map. If Plugin Manager finds a name from Settings but the plugin is no longer exist it continues to find a new value from the map and clears the Settings for that particular handler.
Plugin change could also happen because of user's manual intervention. There are two places where user can change the plugin for a handler:
Copyright © 2011 Nokia Corporation | Maliit |