Compile from source

In general, fcitx and its component largely uses cmake as its build system, and create many of macro with cmake to help build.

General Dependency

This section means, it's the most common dependency among all Fcitx related package, though some of them might not depend on these.

• C compiler (both GCC and Clang are tested)
• C++ compiler (both G++ and CLang++)
• cmake
• intltool

Dependency of Fcitx

• gtk2 (gtk2 input method module)
• gtk3 (gtk2 input method module)
• qt4 (qt4 input method module)
• libxrender (Classic UI)
• cairo (Classic UI)
• pango (Classic UI)
• dbus (all im module, Kimpanel)
• dbus-glib (gtk im module)
• opencc (Better Simp-Trad Chinese Conversion for Chttrans)

If you want to see the specific package name on different distribution, please check Fcitx Complie Dependencies

Compile Option

All compile option start with -D, following only include option name.

CMake General option

• CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX (Directory to install)
• CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE (Debug, Release, RelWithDbgInfo)

Fcitx option

All ENABLE option is boolean value, can be set with On or Off. For default value, please check CMakeLists.txt.

• ENABLE_GTK2_IM_MODULE
• ENABLE_GTK3_IM_MODULE
• ENABLE_QT_IM_MODULE
• ENABLE_CAIRO
• ENABLE_PANGO
• ENABLE_DBUS
• ENABLE_DEBUG
• ENABLE_TABLE
• ENABLE_OPENCC
• ENABLE_STATIC
• ENABLE_TEST
• ENABLE_SNOOPER
• NO_SNOOPER_APPS (Comma separated regex string)
• LIB_INSTALL_DIR (By default is prefix/lib, useful when want to install under /usr/lib64 or other directory)

General command

All cmake based Fcitx component can be compiled in following way.

   cd /path/to/source
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake .. [CMake options]
   make
   sudo make install

For Other Fcitx component, you'd better use

   cd /path/to/source
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`fcitx4-config --prefix`
   make
   sudo make install

Use non standard path to install

It's not recommend to use non standard path, but if you have special need, you need following environment variable to make things work.

Say you install Fcitx at /opt/fcitx, and the library directory is /opt/fcitx/lib, then you need following environment variable.

   export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/fcitx/lib/pkgconfig
   export PATH=$PATH:/opt/fcitx/bin
   export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/opt/fcitx

See also

• CMake wiki