Q: Did kotoeri changed with Maverick?

Apple posted a technote on the subject a few hours ago:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5284

The suggestion is to disable all keyboard layouts except Kotoeri.

That does not help at all, as I need access to many more Western/Roman characters than is possible through Kotoeri (Romanji). And funnily enough, as my OS language is French, the underlying keyboard used by Kotoeri then is the French one (which does not match the Apple JIS at all). I'll send additional feedback.

Thanks for the link to the Apple note.  Hard to believe they do not know it will work ok if you have the US keyboard layout active just before using Kotoeri.  In any case, not a satisfactory fix as you say.

I have a Japanese MBP with a Japanese keyboard and kotoeri doesn't work! For some reason it maps the symbols as if my physical keyboard is UK - can't work out why because I have nothing set to UK. The only exception is that my iTunes account is British - but it would be MAD if Apple was assuming I have a British layout because of that.

lemonsoju wrote:

 

I have a Japanese MBP with a Japanese keyboard and kotoeri doesn't work! For some reason it maps the symbols as if my physical keyboard is UK 

For some reason it thinks the last layout you used was the British one.  Add US to your layout list and make that the last western layout you have used and see if Kotoeri works then.

Adding a US keyboard works in all cases EXCEPT after the login screen after a reboot. For some reason, at that screen the US keyboard doesn't appear and I have to add it manually again.

But note that since I have a Japanese keyboard and using Kotoeri, I shouldn't need to mess about with US keyboards at all. There should be nothing that causes Apple to think my keyboard layout is UK.

lemonsoju,

What language does your OS use?

You can find it in the System Preferences > Language and Region pane (the one with the UN flag). If it is set to ‘British English’ try to switch to plain ‘English’ (that is US English).

Also, I have a keyboard switcher in my Login Window. You can activate that in System Preferences > Users and Groups, click the Options button.

It is set to plain English, not UK English. And I have the keyboard switcher already active - but it always loses the US keyboard after a reboot at the first login screen. After that first login, it appears.

lemonsoju wrote:

 

But note that since I have a Japanese keyboard and using Kotoeri, I shouldn't need to mess about with US keyboards at all. There should be nothing that causes Apple to think my keyboard layout is UK.

Kotoeri is only an input method, not a keyboard layout.  It has to be able to generate Japanese text with every kind of JIS, ANSI, and ISO hardware keyboard and every national keyboard layout.  Apple has to set one layout as the default for the JIS keyboard to work right, and that one is the US layout.   Instead of doing that they are using the "last-used" layout (or in your case for some unknown reason the UK one).  The only think to do (besides messing with the US layout) is to keep hounding them to fix it.

In the current OS, there is no separate definition of input method and keyboard layout. They are one in the same. To choose a US keyboard layout you choose the US input method.

But whatever your call it, it's screwed up when the Japanese layout/input method doesn't even work on a Japanese keyboard. :)  It's a joke.

lemonsoju wrote:

 

In the current OS, there is no separate definition of input method and keyboard layout. They are one in the same. To choose a US keyboard layout you choose the US input method.

Only some languages require input methods, which are essentially dictionary lookups that convert latin text into some other script.  These are Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, and Vietnamese (located in system/library/input methods).  Keyboard layouts are indeed separate.

But of course you are totally correct, it is screwed up that you have to manually invoke the US layout so that the JIS keyboard will work right.

It seems to me there should be a way to fix this by modifying a .plist file, but I have not found it yet.

So where is the keyboard layout setting in the OS. As far as I can see, there isn't any - only input methods. To choose the US keyboard layout, you choose the US input method.

Also, Korean has never had a configurable layout different from the input method as far as I know. I am fluent in Korean.

lemonsoju wrote:

 

So where is the keyboard layout setting in the OS. As far as I can see, there isn't any - only input methods. To choose the US keyboard layout, you choose the US input method.

The terminology can be confusing.  Apple lumps both Input Methods and Keyboards (which are technically very different) into the Input Sources preference pane.   English does not have an Input Method, just a Keyboard (or several, as used in different countries).  Japanese and Chinese have Input Methods for which Apple has allowed all kinds of Keyboards to be used.   Until 10.9, you made this choice for Japanese in Kotoeri Preferences:

For Chinese, the keyboard layout is the last one used (i.e. the way Japanese is in 10.9).

You are right, for the Hangul IM Apple has never provided a keyboard choice, I guess nobody ever asked for it.

Thank you for pointing this.

I am really in pain to understand why the people at Apple are so dumb as to repeat this "classical"-keyboards-input-problem, years through years…

I changed to Mavericks last week, and I am getting really bored to have to change the keyboard twice each time I want to go from French to Kotoeri or vice-versa…

If anyone here knows Japanese well enough, I wonder if the folks in the Japanese Apple discussions might have discovered some kind of fix, like modifying a .plist file, etc:

https://discussionsjapan.apple.com

   I think that kind of solution would be too harsh for the common user.

   We have to wait for an official upgrade…