#1104034 maliit-keyboard: Can't enable prediction / spellchecking despite hunspell-** is installed

Package:
maliit-keyboard
Source:
maliit-keyboard
Description:
virtual on-screen keyboard based on the Maliit Framework
Submitter:
mando
Date:
2025-04-24 14:27:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1104034#5
Date:
2025-04-24 14:25:11 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

   * What led up to the situation?

I installed maliit-keyboard through APT and tried to enable (French)
spellchecking using:

gsettings set org.maliit.keyboard.maliit enabled-languages "['fr', 'ru',
'emoji']"
gsettings set org.maliit.keyboard.maliit spell-checking-languages "['fr', 'en',
'ru']"
gsettings set org.maliit.keyboard.maliit spell-checking true"
gsettings set org.maliit.keyboard.maliit predictive-text true"

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

I tried the options listed in the above item. I did not find any relevant
option running gsettings list-keys org.maliit.keyboard.maliit:

(mando@velvet) (~) $ gsettings list-keys org.maliit.keyboard.maliit
active-language
auto-capitalization
auto-completion
device
disable-height
double-space-full-stop
enable-magnifier
enabled-languages
key-press-feedback
key-press-feedback-sound
key-press-haptic-feedback
opacity
plugin-paths
predictive-text
spell-checking
spell-checking-languages
stay-hidden
theme

I installed hunspell-fr, hunspell-en-us, hunspell-ru.

When running maliit-server, I get:

wordengine.cpp plugin "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-
gnu/maliit/keyboard2/languages/en/libenplugin.so" loaded
inputmethod_p.h registerActiveLanguage(): activeLanguage is: "fr"
in inputMethod.cpp setActiveLanguage() activeLanguage is: "fr"
wordengine.cpp plugin "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-
gnu/maliit/keyboard2/languages/fr/libfrplugin.so" loaded
DB path: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/maliit/keyboard2/languages/fr/database_fr.db
spellechecker.cpp in setLanguage() lang= "fr" dictPath= "/usr/share/hunspell"
inputMethod::reset()
in clear preedit.. clearing word engine
spellechecker.cpp in setLanguage() aff_file= "/usr/share/hunspell/fr.aff"
dic_file= "/usr/share/hunspell/fr.dic" user dictionary=
"/home/mando/.local/share/maliit-server/fr_userDictionary.dic"

... so the French dictionary seems correctly loaded. However, no suggestion is
displayed in the virtual keyboard.

   * What was the outcome of this action?

The keyboard works but there is not suggestions/corrections proposed by the
keyboard.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

The keyboard should display suggestions/corrections proposed by the keyboard.
They look disabled by default [1] but is there a way to turn them on?

[1] https://github.com/maliit/keyboard/pull/146