IBus Chinese input methods for HongKongers

Problem, Solution, Future.

Presented by Sammy Fung

sammy.hk

Sammy Fung

● Python developer.● Founding Chairman of Hong Kong Linux

User Group in 1997.● Community Manager of Open Source

Hong Kong (opensource.hk).● Co-Organizers of GNOME.Asia 2012 in

Hong Kong.

When IBus become default input framework of GNOME......

Chinese and CJK input methods seems to be broken at GNOME desktop enviornment.

What is Cangjie 倉頡 ?

Cangjie 倉頡

● Unlike pinyin method (a pronunciation aspect input method),

● Cangjie is based on the graphological aspect (radical, shapes) of Chinese characters.

● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie_input_method

Quick 速成

● Quick is a easy version of Cangjie, ● users input first and last code of original

Cangjie codes.● and lookup candidate list of possible

Chinese characters, to select the character they want to input.

Input methods in different Chinese worlds

● Hong Kong is much different than China (the mainland) and Taiwan.

● Hong Kong Chinese computer users uses Cangjie and Quick for over 30 years.

● Pinyin is the most popular Chinese input method in Taiwan.

● SCIM and GCIN are popular chinese input in traditional chinese world (Hong Kong and Taiwan).

Problems in IBus

● In ibus, cangjie and quick is provided by ibus-table, but certain problems occurs in ibus to use

● For Quick on IBus, number of character candidates per page is 6, and traditionally is 9 for many years.

● And showing order of character candidates in Quick on IBus are different.

Quick in GCIN

Quick in old ibus-table

Modify a value in ibus python code

9 candidates after modification

Solution

● ibus-cangjie – a seperated IBus input engine for Cangjie and Quick by Mathieu Bridon.

● libcangjie is a cangjie library used by ibus-cangjie, developed by Wanleung Wong.

● And Allan helped to add ibus-cangjie to input method selection panel in GNOME.

Future

● In the future, we will bring another HK Chinese open source input method to ibus and GNOME, it is stroke5.

Strokes in Chinese

● Handwriting a chinese characters with use of different strokes.

● And stroke orders in handwriting.● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_

%28Chinese_character%29● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order

Stroke 5

a chinese input method which its table is inputted by Hong Kong seniors

Stroke 5

● a chinese input method which its table is inputted by Hong Kong seniors

● with around 5,000 daily-use Chinese characters.

● The idea and project is proposed and coordindated by a social worker since 2001.

5 different strokes

● Using " N M , . / " to represent 5 different strokes of Chinese character in Stroke5, which is equal to:

● "Horizontal", "Vertical", "Falling leftwards", "Dot", "Curve"

● 橫 , 直 /豎 , 撇 , 點 , 曲

Targeted users of Stroke 5

● It is suitable for seniors, stroke patients, and children.

● Latest stroke5 website: http://stroke5.webnode.tw/

Thank you

So, we hopes GNOME will be a favourite desktop enviornment again in CJK world. :)

sammy.hk