deadkeys and compose key don't work in xfe and xfw

[brudan]

I am running OpenBSD 6.5, X with default settings, fluxbox with default settings. My keyboard layout is us-international, which has the following deadkeys: ` ~ ^ ' "

The deadkeys and compose key sequences work everywhere (e.g., xterm, gtk applications) but not in xfe and xfw.

For example, in both xfe and xfw:
- AltGr works: AltGr + p gives me ö
- deadkeys broken: ' then e gives me e (é is expected)
- compose key broken: compose then < then 3 gives me <3 (♥ is expected)

I don't think it is a problem with xfe/xfw, because deadkeys and compose key work fine in xfe/xfw running in Debian with same keyboard layout. It must either be a problem with fox toolkit in OpenBSD or else something wrong/missing in my OpenBSD environment.

I already tried launching xfw with different values for XMODIFIERS, to no avail:

$ XMODIFIERS="@im=xim" xfw
$ XMODIFIERS="@im=uim" xfw
$ XMODIFIERS="@im=ibus" xfw
$ XMODIFIERS="" xfw

I have this in my ~/.xsession:

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
fluxbox

Any ideas on what I need to do in order for deadkeys and compose key sequences to work in xfe and xfw? I use these two applications a lot.

[jggimi]

The FAQ recommends LC_CTYPE. "...even LC_ALL and LANG only affect the character encoding."

[brudan]

Thank you, jggimi. I changed my ~/.xsession to this...

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
fluxbox

...and rebooted. It made no difference, unfortunately.

[ibara]

Originally Posted by brudan

Thank you, jggimi. I changed my ~/.xsession to this...

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
fluxbox

Fluxbox should be started this way when run from .xsession:

exec startfluxbox

[brudan]

Thank you, ibara. I changed .xsession as you recommended but that did not solve the problem.

Are you able to reproduce the problem?

[brudan]

I tried the adie text editor, which uses the same FOX toolkit that xfe and xfw use. The problem affects adie as well.

So it seems that the problem affects OpenBSD ports that use the FOX toolkit. The problem does not affect ports that use GTK or Qt toolkit. I have not yet found a fix.

[ibara]

The FOX toolkit could use an update; it's likely very old. Not guaranteed to solve your issue but I'd probably start there.

[brudan]

Good idea, ibara.

So I got the latest stable fox toolkit (version 1.6.57) then compiled and installed it the usual way (note: I cheated and looked at the configure flags and arguments from the existing devel/fox port):

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" ./configure --x-includes="/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --with-xft
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ make
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas pkg_delete fox
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas make install

No luck after the above--xfe and xfw both run fine, but dead keys and compose key are broken just as before.

Please take a look at the first line of code above. Maybe one of those configure arguments is wrong or extraneous? Or maybe a critical argument is missing?

[brudan]

I made massive progress with this. Turns out --with-xim was the missing critical argument to configure. Also, after make install there was one library that xfe couldn't find, which required a symbolic link.

So here is what I have so far:

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" ./configure --x-includes="/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --with-xft --with-xim
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ make CXX=c++
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas pkg_delete fox
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas make install
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas ln -s /usr/local/lib/libFOX-1.6.so.0.57 /usr/local/lib/libFOX-1.6.so.2.1

Now dead keys and compose key work fine in xfe and xfw

But now I have this cosmetic issue when launching xfe from the command line:

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ xfe
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv120__si_class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv120__function_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVSt9type_info) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv123__fundamental_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv119__pointer_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv129__pointer_to_member_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv116__enum_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv121__vmi_class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__pbase_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__array_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program

Since I've come this far, I'd like to recompile so that the above warnings disappear. What went wrong?

[ibara]

Originally Posted by brudan

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ xfe
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv120__si_class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv120__function_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVSt9type_info) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv123__fundamental_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv119__pointer_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv129__pointer_to_member_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv116__enum_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv121__vmi_class_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__pbase_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program
xfe:/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.57.0: /usr/lib/libc++abi.so.0.1 : WARNING: symbol(_ZTVN10__cxxabiv117__array_type_infoE) size mismatch, relink your program

Since I've come this far, I'd like to recompile so that the above warnings disappear. What went wrong?

This means that there's a stray g++ in your build. Probably during the link step. You'll want to change

Originally Posted by brudan

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" ./configure --x-includes="/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --with-xft --with-xim

to

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ CXX=c++ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" ./configure --x-includes="/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --with-xft --with-xim

[brudan]

Ibara, you are amazing. Yes, that did it.

SOLVED!

This GNU/g++ vs. clang/c++ issue keeps tripping me up. Hopefully someday I'll tame it.

For posterity's sake, here are the final steps I took to solve the problem described in my first post:

bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ CXX=c++ CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib" ./configure --x-includes="/usr/X11R6/include -I/usr/X11R6/include/freetype2" --x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib --with-xft --with-xim
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ make
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas pkg_delete fox
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas make install
bruno@thinkpad:~/Downloads/fox-1.6.57$ doas ln -s /usr/local/lib/libFOX-1.6.so.0.57 /usr/local/lib/libFOX-1.6.so.2.1

[ibara]

I submitted a port update here: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-ports&m...7045606394&w=2

[brudan]

Nice. Thank you!