IMEInputBackport

IMEInputBackport

Backports modern (26.1+-style) CJK input method support to Minecraft 1.7.10 Forge — inline pre-edit text, a candidate window that follows the caret, and sane key handling while composing. Type Chinese/Japanese/Korean in chat like it’s 2026.

What it does

Vanilla 1.7.10 predates proper IME integration: composing CJK text in chat means typing blind into a system window floating in a corner (or nothing at all in fullscreen). This mod hooks the OS input method directly into the game:

• Inline composition — the pre-edit string renders right at the text caret inside chat, sign, book and anvil text fields.
• Candidate window — either the OS/IME native one positioned next to the caret, or a mod-drawn overlay that is fully themeable via resource packs.
• Correct key semantics while composing — letter keys don’t leak into the text field twice, Escape cancels the composition instead of closing the screen, and everything passes through untouched when you’re not composing.

Platform support

| Platform | Backend | Notes |
|—|—|—|
| Windows x64 / x86 / arm64 | TSF, falls back to IMM32 | works with MS-Pinyin, Sogou, Rime (weasel), Microsoft IME, … |
| Linux x64 | IBus and Fcitx5 (both D-Bus, X11 / XWayland) | AUTO picks one by the IME environment variables (XMODIFIERS, GTK_IM_MODULE, …) with the other as fallback; both bridges ship in the same .so |
| Linux arm64 | — | not supported |
| macOS | — | not supported |

The native libraries are bundled inside the jar and extracted at runtime — no manual setup. The Linux backends bind libdbus-1.so.3 at runtime via dlopen, so there is no extra package to install beyond a working IBus or Fcitx5 setup.

Fcitx5 compatibility notes:

• Requires fcitx5 ≥ 5.1.5 (the InputContext1 D-Bus protocol). Older fcitx5 and classic fcitx 4 are not supported.
• The mod talks to fcitx5 directly over the session bus — it does not depend on the desktop’s IME framework switch, so IBus and Fcitx5 can be installed side by side; whichever daemon is running is reachable.
• A freshly created input context starts in English direct mode (fcitx5’s per-context activation state). Press your activate hotkey (default Ctrl+Space) once after focusing a text field; fcitx5 remembers the state per application afterwards.
• Engines verified: Rime (fcitx5-rime). Any engine that consumes ProcessKeyEvent normally (pinyin via fcitx5-chinese-addons, etc.) works.

Requirements

CatFrame for the hard prerequisites for the overlay system and the keyboard event.
UniMixins for the mixin requirements.
Forge 1.7.10-1614 + Java 8

Configuration (config/imeinput.cfg)

| Key | Default | Meaning |
|—|—|—|
| general.backend | AUTO | AUTO matches the platform (Windows: TSF → IMM32 fallback; Linux: IBus). TSF / IMM32 force a Windows backend, IBUS forces IBus on Linux. Values for the other platform degrade to AUTO. |
| general.candidateNativeBar | true | true = the OS/IME draws its own candidate window; false = hide it and let the mod self-draw the candidate box (stacked under the pre-edit box, themeable). Needs a game restart. |

The look of everything the mod draws is controlled by assets/imeinput/ime_theme.json, overridable by any resource pack — see Themes.md.

For Developers, this doc (API) is provided to integrate with it.

License

MIT

Note: JNI implement see here