rime/plum

Plum is a configuration manager for Rime, an open-source input method engine that lets you type Chinese (and other languages) on your computer. Rime is highly customizable but can be tricky to set up from scratch. Plum solves this by giving you a simple way to download and install ready-made input schemas, the rule sets and dictionaries that define how your keystrokes turn into characters, so you don't have to build them yourself. At its core, Plum is a shell script that fetches packages from GitHub. Each package, called a "recipe," contains one or more input schemas along with their associated dictionaries. You run a single command in your terminal (on Linux or macOS) or a batch file (on Windows), and Plum downloads the files you need and places them in Rime's user directory. You can install a preset bundle of essentials, pick individual packages by name, or even pull in configurations from third-party developers by referencing their GitHub repositories. The catalog of available packages is extensive. It covers phonetic-based methods like Pinyin (in several variants), Zhuyin/Bopomofo, and Cantonese, as well as shape-based methods like Cangjie and Wubi. There are even packages for Middle Chinese, regional dialects like Shanghainese and Suzhounese, emoji input, and International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. This makes it a one-stop shop for virtually any Chinese typing method you might need, whether you're writing in Modern Standard Mandarin or reconstructing historical pronunciation. Anyone who uses Rime for Chinese input would benefit from Plum. For example, a Cantonese speaker who wants to type using Jyutping, or a Mandarin speaker who prefers Double Pinyin, can install the right package in seconds rather than manually configuring YAML files. It's also useful for power users who want to maintain a personal Rime configuration on GitHub and share it with others, Plum can install those custom setups just as easily as the official ones. One notable design choice is that Plum itself is lightweight: it's essentially a downloader and installer, not a runtime component. The actual input processing happens in Rime. Plum also supports an interactive selection mode and can build schema files into pre-compiled binaries, which saves time on first startup. The project is licensed under LGPLv3, though individual data packages may carry their own licenses.