Subject: Remap Cangjie Keys

From: "L.S.Ng" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 17:15:24 GMT

Dear Netters,

Is anybody using Cangjie to input simplified Characters?

Last year I have put a Cangjie for Guobiao dictionary up to
ifcss.org. It is in software/data and software/x-win/cxterm-dictionary.
Ever since, I have corrected some bugs found.

I have now with me two versions of Cangjie for Guobiao.

1.  Cangjie for Guobiao with some bugs removed.  I planned to put it to
ifcss.org shortly.

2.  Cangjie for Guobiao with new keyboard layout. I believe this will
make the input more comfortable if not improve the speed. The new layout
has the following changes from the original Cangjie:

Original          New layout
   Y (bu3)            X (bu3)
   X (chong2/nan2)    Z (chong2/nan2)
   Z (undefined)      Y (undefined)
other keys remained unchanged.

So you may note that the changes are minor. However it makes Cangjie a
lot more comfortable to use.

The main problem is the Y-key.  In a report which I posted to CCNET-l
before summer, I found that Y has a very high frequency.  Also, the
right hand has more workload than the left hand.  Besides, Y-key
position is awkward.  Upon prolong typing using Cangjie, my right-hand
fore-finger become very painful because Y is furthest from right
forefinger position J-key - it strecthes my muscle.

Putting Bu3 to X, firstly it makes your left hand and right hand
workload more balanced as Bu3 is one of the most frequently used key.
Secondly, it aviods stretching your forefinger.  The distance Y to J is
long but now, you will use your Wumingzhi, so the distance is from X to
S which is now very short.

Don't bother about the argument above, you will feel the ease when you
do it.

Also, I have found a way to force character selection by SPACE_BAR in
CXTERM. The trick is to add a 'undefined-key' (Z in original Cangjie, Y
in new layout) to every input sequence.

For example, if 'a1' is 'nlmnr', it is changed to 'nlmnrz' or 'nlmnry'.
After you typed 'nlmnr', CXTERM will not select 'a1' because it is
fooled to believe that the full input-sequence is 'nlmnrz'. Here you
don't press 'z'. Instead to press SPACE to select the character, because
by definition, pressing SPACE at any time will select Character 1
matching the sequence.

Anyway, from the user point of view, you now have a combination of
Choices:

The first Choice is whether to adopt the New layout. I assure you
it is much more comfortable and only take 5 minutes to get use to.

The second choice is whether to choose autoselect or forced select by
SPACE-BAR.

I will try to put all 4 possible combinations of the Cangjie for Guobiao
dictionary to ifcss.org.

Note that, those four Cangjie only apply to Guobiao Cangjie. I will also
consider modifying Big5 Cangjie later on. This will add to another
combination: GB or Big5. So you have altogether 8 possible combinations
to choose from:

Original (bu3 is Y)  or  New keyboard  (bu3 is X)
Autoselect or forced select
GB or Big5

I shall name them Cangjie.org-bu-Y.auto.GB, ...
Cangjie.new-bu-X.force.Big5 and so on.

Note that each GB Cangjie dictionary is about 70K. Whereas Big5 Cangjie
Dictionary is about 130K. So the complete collections will be 3x70+3x130
= 600K. This apply to dictionary in text format. Upon binary formatted,
it could be halved.

Last but not least, I will also try to write a utility to extract and
modify the Cangjie dictionary provided by Eten.

Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,
Liangsheng WU