Input method (IM) is a sine qua non for text entry of many Asian languages, but its potential applications on other languages remain under-explored. This paper proposes a philosophy of input method design by seeing it as a nonintrusive plug-in text service framework. Such design allows new functionalities of text processing to be attached onto a running application without any tweaking of code. We also introduce OpenVanilla, a cross-platform framework that is designed with the above-mentioned model in mind. Frameworks like OpenVanilla have shown that an input method can be more than just a text entry tool: it offers a convenient way for developing various text service and language tools.
@article{arxiv.cs/0508041,
title = {OpenVanilla - A Non-Intrusive Plug-In Framework of Text Services},
author = {Tian-Jian Jiang and Deng-Liu and Kang-min Liu and Weizhong Yang and Pek-tiong Tan and Mengjuei Hsieh and Tsung-hsiang Chang and Wen-Lien Hsu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cs/0508041},
year = {2007}
}