Subject: Re: Do wtalk support Pinyin or WuBi

From: Wang Wei <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 14:50:49 -0400

Hi, Edward,

I'm the author of wTalk and Way. Thanks for your interest in my work.
Sorry that I post this answer to CCNET-L, if anyone consider this of no
interest.

> Does any one know if WTALK (based on WAY3100) supports any kind of
> chinese input method, e.g. Pinyin, WuBiZiXin etc. ?
>
> For multi-window editing purpose, WTALK is nice.

wTalk does not support Chinese input methods, it uses them. The Chinese
input is supported by Way. In the version 3.1.00, I've included CiHui
(PinYin phrase), WuBiZiXing (as WuBi.dic), CangJie (in CangJie.dic),
QianMa (in QianMa.dic), Telegraph Code (Telecode.dic) input dictionaries
in Way. These are practically usable dictionaries. The others
(YingHan.dic and DeHan.dic) are examples to show how a user can build
his/her own input dictionaries with Way. If anyone out there have data to
build input methods like Cantonnese, or a real English-Chinese input
method, I believe that they are welcome to compile it with Way and upload
to ifcss.org or CND.org.

Although only I have developed wTalk and Tian BoGang have done ChPad
based on Way, but I believe there are a lot more things could be done
using Way, like a Chinese card program. That's why I released it as a
shareware without charge. Only wTalk requires a small registration fee of
$10.

> For viewing the GB document larger than 64 K, it is better than ChPad.
> I don't think any one will make use of ChPad to read HXWZ, since the
> maximal window length can not display the full length of chinese
> characters (40 char). It was strong that the author did not improve
> this "bug".

It's true that wTalk can handle large files. I tried to scan the CiHui
dictionary item list with it, which was about 570K. So I advertised wTalk
as can handle files larger than 640K :-) Though I never tried it, I
believe it works. of couse you need to have that kind of RAM. Also I like
features in ChPad, like the setting of text and background colors, and
snapshot taking of the text displayed in its window, which you can not do
with wTalk.

There are some other things I'd like to take this chance to explain. The
printing function in wTalk does not work for now. I'm working on it, but
it will take a while to come out. Other functions, such as the
communications stuff, also do not work yet. I was in a hurry to release
it before the new semester started, so I forgot to disable these menu
items. I apologize for any confusion caused.

Since I didn't have time to write an online help file for wTalk, you have
to try yourself to find out what it can do. Things like inserting and
deleting characters are pretty obvious. The "simple text clip" function I
mentioned in the announcement means that you can mark a text section and
then cut & paste. Drag-n-drop and command line file name are also
supported, which means that you can drag a file from the File Manager and
drop it into wTalk, or click on a file to invoke wTalk with that file
open in it. Again, of course you need to link that file's extention with
wTalk in the File Manager.

Thanks for the attention. Hope you and others like them.

Wang Wei  [MS CS, Central Michigan University
          [1532 S.Mission, Apt.209S, Mt.Pleasant, MI 48858 (517-773-1656)