mozc/docs/design_doc/input_scope.md

Input Scope Support in Mozc

Objective

Make Windows Mozc client aware of InputScope feature on Windows.

Starting with Windows 8, InputScope is the recommended way to set the conversion mode of Japanese IME and ImmSetConversionStatus API is virtually deprecated in per user input mode.

Thus, Japanese Microsoft IME ignores the change of conversion modes made by calling ImmSetConversionStatus when used in per user mode. This API is used in the IME mode property of .NET framework. InputScope is recommended in order to set the IME mode under per user mode in Windows 8. - "Switch text input changed from per-thread to per-user"

Microsoft IME shipped with Windows Vista and later actually behaves like this. As for Mozc, Mozc client’s should behave like Microsoft IME 2012 in terms of open/close mode and conversion mode for each InputScope. This is the first step to support such context-awareness. As future work, Mozc should be able to behave more appropriately and adoptively based on each input context.

Design Highlights

When an input field is focused and it has InputScope, Mozc should change its on/off mode and conversion mode as follows.

InputScope	Expected Input Mode
IS_URL, IS_EMAIL_USERNAME, IS_EMAIL_SMTPEMAILADDRESS, IS_DIGITS, IS_NUMBER, IS_PASSWORD, IS_TELEPHONE_FULLTELEPHONENUMBER, IS_TELEPHONE_COUNTRYCODE, IS_TELEPHONE_AREACODE, IS_TELEPHONE_LOCALNUMBER, IS_TIME_FULLTIME, IS_TIME_HOUR, IS_TIME_MINORSEC	Direct Mode (IME Off)
IS_HIRAGANA	Hiragana Mode (IME On)
IS_ALPHANUMERIC_HALFWIDTH	Halfwidth Alphanumeric Mode (IME On)
IS_NUMBER_FULLWIDTH, IS_ALPHANUMERIC_FULLWIDTH	Fullwidth Alphanumeric Mode (IME On)
IS_KATAKANA_HALFWIDTH	Halfwidth Katakana Mode (IME On)
IS_KATAKANA_FULLWIDTH	Fullwidth Katakana Mode (IME On)

From usability perspectives, user experience offered by InputScope should be consistent with that in password field. It means that the change caused by InputScope should be temporal and volatile. This requires two different mode sets 1) mode visible from Mozc client and 2) mode visible from TSF should be managed.

Here is an example of mode transitions.

Action	Mozc On/Off	Mozc Mode	TSF On/Off	TSF Mode
Turn IME on	On	Hiragana	On	Hiragana
↓
Enter email field	Off	Hiragana	On	Hiragana
↓
Enter search field	On	Hiragana	On	Hiragana
↓
Turn IME off	Off	Hiragana	Off	Hiragana
↓
Enter Halfwidth Katakan field	On	Halfwidth Katakana	Off	Hiragana

When on/off mode and/or conversion mode that are visible from Mozc is changed by InputScope, Mode Indicator will be popped up near the caret location so that a user can immediately get to know the new input mode.

Scope

InputScope has been supported in the following frameworks and environment:

• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8+
• Chromium 26+ on Windows Vista and later
• Firefox 23+ on Windows Vista and later

Here is the mapping table from HTML5 input types to InputScope on Windows.

HTML5 Forms Input Type	Internet Explorer 10	Chromium 26	Firefox 23
text	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT
number	IS_NUMBER	IS_NUMBER	IS_NUMBER
email	IS_EMAIL_SMTPEMAILADDRESS	IS_EMAIL_SMTPEMAILADDRESS	IS_EMAIL_SMTPEMAILADDRESS
password	IS_PASSWORD	IS_PASSWORD	IS_PASSWORD
color	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT
date	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DATE_FULLDATE
datetime	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DATE_FULLDATE
datetime-local	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DATE_FULLDATE
month	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DATE_FULLDATE
search	IS_SEARCH	IS_SEARCH	IS_SEARCH
tel	IS_TELEPHONE_FULLTELEPHONENUMBER	IS_TELEPHONE_FULLTELEPHONENUMBER	IS_TELEPHONE_FULLTELEPHONENUMBER, IS_TELEPHONE_LOCALNUMBER
time	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_TIME_FULLTIME
url	IS_URL	IS_URL	IS_URL
week	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DATE_FULLDATE
range	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT
range	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT	IS_DEFAULT

Chromium OS might want to follow this mapping in future if the feedback to this project is positive. To achieve this, we need to add Chromium version of InputScope into chrome.input.ime API.

Risk

Some user may dislike this kind of automatic mode changing and want a configuration option to disable it, while it is not configurable yet.

Production Impact

Available only for users who are using Mozc in TSF Mode. This means that only Windows 8+ user will be able to use this feature with Mozc. No impact to all other platforms.

Release History

• Initial release: 1.11.1490.10x dev on Windows

Reference

• Input Scopes - TSF Aware
• Improving Recognition Results - Improving Recognition Results
• Input modalities - 4.10.19 Attributes common to form controls - HTML Standard - WhatWG

Full list of InputScope (as of Windows 8)

IS_DEFAULT = 0
IS_URL = 1
IS_FILE_FULLFILEPATH = 2
IS_FILE_FILENAME = 3
IS_EMAIL_USERNAME = 4
IS_EMAIL_SMTPEMAILADDRESS = 5
IS_LOGINNAME = 6
IS_PERSONALNAME_FULLNAME = 7
IS_PERSONALNAME_PREFIX = 8
IS_PERSONALNAME_GIVENNAME = 9
IS_PERSONALNAME_MIDDLENAME = 10
IS_PERSONALNAME_SURNAME = 11
IS_PERSONALNAME_SUFFIX = 12
IS_ADDRESS_FULLPOSTALADDRESS = 13
IS_ADDRESS_POSTALCODE = 14
IS_ADDRESS_STREET = 15
IS_ADDRESS_STATEORPROVINCE = 16
IS_ADDRESS_CITY = 17
IS_ADDRESS_COUNTRYNAME = 18
IS_ADDRESS_COUNTRYSHORTNAME = 19
IS_CURRENCY_AMOUNTANDSYMBOL = 20
IS_CURRENCY_AMOUNT = 21
IS_DATE_FULLDATE = 22
IS_DATE_MONTH = 23
IS_DATE_DAY = 24
IS_DATE_YEAR = 25
IS_DATE_MONTHNAME = 26
IS_DATE_DAYNAME = 27
IS_DIGITS = 28
IS_NUMBER = 29
IS_ONECHAR = 30
IS_PASSWORD = 31
IS_TELEPHONE_FULLTELEPHONENUMBER = 32
IS_TELEPHONE_COUNTRYCODE = 33
IS_TELEPHONE_AREACODE = 34
IS_TELEPHONE_LOCALNUMBER = 35
IS_TIME_FULLTIME = 36
IS_TIME_HOUR = 37
IS_TIME_MINORSEC = 38
IS_NUMBER_FULLWIDTH = 39
IS_ALPHANUMERIC_HALFWIDTH = 40
IS_ALPHANUMERIC_FULLWIDTH = 41
IS_CURRENCY_CHINESE = 42
IS_BOPOMOFO = 43
IS_HIRAGANA = 44
IS_KATAKANA_HALFWIDTH = 45
IS_KATAKANA_FULLWIDTH = 46
IS_HANJA = 47
IS_HANGUL_HALFWIDTH = 48
IS_HANGUL_FULLWIDTH = 49
IS_SEARCH = 50
IS_FORMULA = 51
IS_SEARCH_INCREMENTAL = 52
IS_CHINESE_HALFWIDTH = 53
IS_CHINESE_FULLWIDTH = 54
IS_NATIVE_SCRIPT = 55

See InputScope enumeration for details.