Mac OS X is finally up to speed with Traditional Chinese input. You can now input with the “Hanyin” input method. The Hanyin input method existed in Mac OS 9, but hadn’t been implemented in Mac OS X until now.
What does the Hanyin input method let you do? It lets you type in Hanyu Pinyin with tones (i.e. “wo3”). Learning mode can be turned on where it guesses what you are trying to type from multiple dictionaries (i.e. general dictionary, Chinese medicine dictionary, military dictionary, Western medical dictionary, Buddhist dictionary, information technology dictionary, industrial technology dictionary, horticulture dictionary, etc.), thus helping those out who have limited character recognition. It also learns from the characters you most often input and presents them as first choices before you have to hit the space bar and input the right character from a list of other options with the same pronunciation and tone.
There are also a host of other tools implemented for developers that need to have an overview of properties, incorporating fonts, input sequences, Unicode, etc.
On a related note, system wide checking of spelling as you type has been implemented. For example, you can have your spelling checked in your Web browser as you type, just as you would in MS Word. Just do a CTRL click to bring up the properties menu. Or, just right mouse-click.
That’s awesome, I was looking for something like that with Panther.
Now do you know any English Chinese dictionary or any learning tool for Mac?
Thanks Mate!
Wow - that looks great. Another reason to upgrade and spend lots of money. Maybe after CNY bonus
Does the new input system allow you to input the pinyin of multiple characters at once? I used a Chinese program back in college that allowed you to type in up to 3 characters at once - making it faster and easier to type. (for example: typing in “womende” and then choosing
[quote=“monkbucket”]Does the new input system allow you to input the pinyin of multiple characters at once? I used a Chinese program back in college that allowed you to type in up to 3 characters at once - making it faster and easier to type. (for example: typing in “womende” and then choosing
Apple aren’t the only ones pushing Unicode. Microsoft uses Unicode for most of the internal representations in NT/2k/XP. Most current Linux systems now use Unicode by default. Java has used Unicode internally since the beginning. There’s still a lot of rough edges, but I think Unicode is the future.
One thing you said though that can be inaccurate is that Unicode uses 2-byte characters. This is true of UTF-16/ISO10646 which is usually used for internal storage of Unicode strings, but terminals, web pages, etc. usually use UTF-8 which uses 1-4 bytes per character depending on which characters you use. This is for compatibility with ASCII, as the ASCII character set exactly overlaps with UTF-8’s 1 byte per character set.
I am a user with limited knowledge of the underlying mechanics. Therefore, it would have been a stroke of genius on my part to claim that UTF-8 was any so much bytes. However, I do know that Unicode does what I need for what is done now with two byte characters: input Chinese. That’s the heart of my technical assessment above: input Chinese baby.
Currently, I use Big5. Since the mapping to my Big5 fonts will hold under Unicode … it doesn’t really matter to me if it is done with Unicode or Unifload. Although, the added bonus would be to have multiple scripts on one page.
What is important to me that Apple gets Chinese (and other Asian languages) support into its products system-wide.
[quote=“wishIhadaMac”]That’s awesome, I was looking for something like that with Panther.
Now do you know any English Chinese dictionary or any learning tool for Mac?
Thanks Mate![/quote]
You might try Wenlin (wenlin.com/), which is what I use. There’s a “new” version (3.0) available for OS X.
Can you share your experience with this program for Mac users? I looked at their site. NEVER knew anything like this existed for the Mac. Looks like something I would want to get. How do you like it? Strengths? Weaknesses?
They have a demo (2.x only) available for download which should give you an idea. I bought the 2.x version for PC a couple of years ago and it’s pretty decent for learning stuff. The program interface is a bit clunky and it defaults to simplified characters (you can select traditional instead), but it is easy to look up an english word and get the chinese equivalent. And if you have Chinese up on the screen you just point at a character and it’ll tell you the pinyin (with tones) and the meaning. It also recognizes words of multiple characters most of the time. The disctionary used (again 2.x) is kinda dated, so it is useless for modern slang or computer terminology. The flashcard system is pretty good, but it’s limited to single characters and doesn’t adapt to which characters you’re weak on. It would be nice if the flashcard system would figure out when you’ve mastered certain characters and only ask about the ones you get wrong. It’s a bit pricey at $199, but it is one of the best chinese learning tools I’ve seen. The others I’ve tried are overladen with so much multimedia crap that they end up being just toys. If there’s a better one, I’d like to hear about it. If anyone has the 3.1 version, please post a review. I’m stilll mulling whether to spend my $49 to upgrade.
I always admire the beauty of Mac. And the picture of the new input system and ability to search character by strokes and radicals is really a new accomplishment
I really wish either Microsoft or Apple will incorporate Wenlin at the heart of their language component system. That’s what I call improvement. If that happened, you can search for every information about a character.
Here’s the information that I am interested
zhuyin fuhao, hanyu pinyin, cangjie code, number of strokes, radicals, english meaning.
big5 code, unicode, telegraph, and related codes
regional spelling: hakka, s. min, cantonese, japanese, korean, etc.
etymology, stroke order animation, component breakdown. similar to Wenlin, you can search based on component at any click, lookup words containing certain character at one click.
additional field for user remark. can be used for translation to any languages.
If this all comes true on one computer. It would be very good for chinese language acquisition.
What I have now is semiequivalent to this. I need to use the combination of four software to get all this information.
Maybe after CNY bonus 