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Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 02:41:41 +0100
From: Kenn Humborg <kenn@linux.ie>
To: Irish Linux Users Group <ilug@linux.ie>
Subject: Re: [ILUG] inputting chinese characters in Redhat 7.3
Message-Id: <20020801024141.A1980@excalibur.research.wombat.ie>
References: <fergal@esatclear.ie> <200207311757.g6VHvoX11572@linux.local>
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    blf@utvinternet.ie on Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 06:57:50PM +0100
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On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 06:57:50PM +0100, Brian Foster wrote:
>  XIMs generally work as a complex compose frontend.  i.e., you
>  build up your character as a series of composes of the root or
>  fundamental strokes ("radicals", I think they are called), and
>  then "commit" the composite character to the application.
>  ( yes, keyboarding these scripts _is_ quite slow, I believe
>   a good typist can only do a few characters a minute!
>   and I assume using a qwerty keyboard is very painful. )

I can speak for some Chinese input methods and you can do a hell
of a lot better than a few chars per minute.  For example, the
simplest Chinese IM is Pinyin where you phonetically spell out
each character using the pinyin romanisation rules.  For example,
Zhong Guo (Chinese for China) is entered by typing 'zhong',
then you're prompted with a list of possible matches, with the
most common first in a numbered list, so you hit, say, 2 for
the second in the list, then similarly for 'guo' 3.

You can see, that, regarding keystroke counts, it's not that
much different to English.  However, until you get familiar
with the sorting order in the 'possible match' lists, it can
be a little slow.

Other input methods are more keystroke-efficient, losing the
phonetic simplicity of Pinyin.  Chinese characters are almost
always pronounced as a first-part-second-part, so zhong is
'zh'-'ong'.  One input method assigns single letters to
the possible first and second parts, so 'i' might represent
'zh' as a first part and 'ong' as a second part, so you'd
enter zhong as 'ii' and a digit to choose from the possible
matches.

I think the Microsoft Global IME has a 'stroke' mode where
you can build up a character stroke by stroke, but you'd only
use that when you know the character you want but you don't
know how to pronounce it.

> 
>  some XIMs compose "in place", others do it on a special line,
>  and some seem to do it in a special window (or the root?).
>  also, some(/most?) XIMs apparently support a US-ASCII input
>  mode as well --- _not_ a general Latin-alphabet input mode,
>  which seems to require another TLA, called KBD, and which
>  apparently doesn't work when an XIM is also being used? ---
>  implying you have to switch back and forth between US-ASCII
>  input mode (what us English-speakers would call "normal"
>  keyboarding/typing), and the other input (e.g., Chinese).
>  I'm not sure, but I have the impression the switch is often
>  a toggle, and something like <Control><CapsLock>.

Probably most often Ctrl-Space.  That's what the Microsoft Global
Input Method Editor uses and what xcin uses IIRC.

Regarding the original poster's question - here's what works for me
on Red Hat 7.2

o  Make sure the xcin and ttfonts-zh_CN RPMs are installed.  (The
   fonts might not be essential, I think XFree comes with usuable
   Chinese fonts in the XFree86-fonts RPMs

o  Select Chinese (Simplified) as the language in GDM when logging
   in.

Everything should 'just work'.  If you've got the default clock in
your GNOME panel, you should now see it in Chinese.  A lot of the
menus will also be in Chinese, but you should be able to find your
way around.

Use Ctrl-Space to toggle between Chinese and English input.  When 
in Chinese mode Shift-Space toggles between something that I don't
understand, but it blocks exiting to English.  So if you can't use
Ctrl-Space to get back to English, try hitting Shift-Space, Ctrl-Space.

Fire up a GNOME terminal.  In Chinese mode, type zhong 1 guo 1 and 
you'll see the Chinese for China.

Getting this to work while selecting English at the GDM screen is left
as an exercise for the reader.  Looking at /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/xinput
and /usr/share/doc/xcin should give enough info.

Later,
Kenn



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