Subject: Re: Five-stroke input methods

From: Ng Liang Shing <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 02:44:03 MYT

Dave & Netters,

On Fri, 22 Jul 1994 11:03:48 -0700 (PDT), "David Porter" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm working on a chinese language reference program, and I'm trying
> to learn something about character input methods.  Do you know of

My understanding is that Chinese Character processing consists of Chinese
character input system and Chinese character output system. Diagrammatically:

  key sequence ---( Chinese character input system )---> character code
   (keyboard)                                                   or
                                                      string of character code

   (other devices may be used: e.g. mouse, pen, etc. But keyboard is the most
common and popular, or most practical at the momoent.)

Chinese character output system:

   character code ---( Chinese character output system )---> character glyph

Glyph is the definition about how a character is drawn. The glyph table is a
part of a 'font'.

The general problem involved in input methods is that given an input, we need
to process or search a database for its corresponding character code or string
of character code.

For keyboard input, the problem is straight forward. We capture a sequence of
keystrokes. Then search an 'input dictionary' to find its corresponding
character code or string of character code.

A collection of input dictionary call the CXTERM-dictionary can be found by
anonymous ftp at ifcss.org:/software/x-win/cxterm-dictionary. They are
readable text files.

This is a table lookup problem. This class of problem dedicates to finding
efficient algorithms for searching database.

Another aspect of the input methods is about the logic and principles about
HOW to relate a particular key sequence to the character code.  This problem
is more on to the liguistic side.  e.g.  How can we use Pinyin as an input
method.  How can we break down all Chinese characters into a definite set of
radicals and how to assign the keyboard to the radicals.  How to build a
phrase dictionary.  etc...

> Do you have any ideas about topics which may be suitable for an

Besides the ftp information, Youngguang Zhang (the author of CXTERM) published
an article in the journal Software:Princple and Practice, Octorber 1992 (???)
Try to write to him at <[email-masked]>. A large portion of this article is
dedicated to input method. But my comment is that his algorithm is
unneccessarily complicated. It can be simplified using binary search on a
sorted dictionary file.

Besides Chinese characeter I/O problems, related problems are are software
development for Chinese system software and application software e.g.  how to
choose a suitable platform, what are the easiest vs.  safest way of writing
applications, how to design portable Chinese system software/application
software etc...

Some other problems could be how to design Chinese system on non-computer
platform e.g. teletext, large LCD display, sign board at train stations or
airport, designing pager with Chinese text,...

Sincerely,
Liangsheng Wu