separate selection of input methods from keyboard layouts
Input methods are really orthogonal to keyboard layouts but currently in Gnome we expose and select them together under Input Sources. It can also be confusing for users since it is too easy to mistaken keyboard layout for IMEs and sometimes vice versa.
This isn't a completely trivial problem to solve: it would need additional UI and plumbing logic and other considerations to make it happen.
We should maybe also revisit how Windows/MacOS/ChromeOS handles it.
Personally I feel keyboard layouts are actually more the domain of the OS: in Fedora, the installer already let's one choose the system keyboard layout. Keyboard layouts are actually pretty constrained in terms of hardware: the number of choices appropriate for the physical system keyboard is generally limited. Of course one can connect a different external keyboard, so it is slightly tricky, but these days with laptops I think people who do that are in the minority (particularly the number using different layouts on the same computer). I guess I am trying to say the keyboard layouts are a lower level than input methods.
Input methods on the other hand are largely independent of keyboard layout (though of course they leverage (or occasionally override) the prevailing keyboard layout: currently Gnome also supports having no keyboard layout set but only an IME, which is okay if the IME supports Latin (direct) input.
I don't feel the panel Input Sources indicator menu needs to change currently. But that could be revisited later if needed after this idea were implemented.
Proposed Mockups:
TBD
I haven't thought deeply about the UI: maybe IMEs could be separated out from keyboard layouts in the Keyboard pane into a separate selection chooser UI?
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cc @aday