WinRemap — IME status indicator

Independent of remapping, WinRemap can flash a translucent 「あ」 panel at the center of the active window the moment the IME turns on — or when you focus a window whose IME is on — so you always know your input mode before typing. Display only: WinRemap never switches the IME.

[ime_indicator]
enabled = true                # default: false
# trigger_keys = ["C-Space"]  # if you toggle the IME with Ctrl+Space
# duration_ms = 800           # 100–5000
# size = 96                   # 32–256
# opacity = 200               # 0–255
# show_app_name = true        # exe name under the glyph
# change_cursor_color = true  # colour the mouse cursor while the IME is on
# cursor_color = "#0078d4"    # the colour, default WinRemap's blue

Standard IME keys (Henkan/Muhenkan, Zenkaku/Hankaku, Kana, IME On/Off) are detected out of the box; add trigger_keys if you use a custom toggle like the Windows 11 IME's Ctrl+Space option. The panel never takes focus or input, and a problem in the indicator never affects remapping.

Colouring the mouse cursor

change_cursor_color = true turns the panel's one-off flash into something you can check at any moment: while the IME is on, the arrow and the text I-beam are drawn in your colour with a white border. It is independent of enabled — you can have the cursor without the panel. Off by default.

The colour is a change to the whole session, not just to WinRemap's own windows. That does not make it reach everywhere: the IME state behind it is read by messaging the window in front, and Windows does not let a normal program message an elevated one (UIPI), so neither the panel nor the colour appears while an elevated window has the focus. The session-wide change leads to one thing worth knowing:

A coloured cursor with no WinRemap in the tray means WinRemap was killed. The colour is only ever applied while the IME is on, so a colour left behind cannot be mistaken for normal. Nothing is broken and nothing needs repairing: start WinRemap again and the cursor goes back, and so does signing out and back in.

Quitting from the tray, a crash WinRemap can still see, and closing the --debug window all put the cursor back on the way out. Your own cursor theme and size are kept — the shape is recoloured, not replaced.

Fixed in 1.0.0: on a scaled display, the I-beam stayed plain while the arrow was tinted.
The cause was display scaling. At 125% or more, Windows handed WinRemap an I-beam with nothing drawn in it — the stock I-beam is drawn by inverting the screen, and that survives neither the scaling nor the conversion that comes with it. The arrow is an ordinary colour cursor, which is why exactly half the tint went missing. Up to 0.9.0 this showed up in two forms: an I-beam that was not tinted, and — before 0.9.0 — one that was not drawn at all.
If you still see either on 1.0.0, --debug records which cursors could not be tinted and why, and repeats it every time the IME goes on; a report with those lines in it is welcome.