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Multiple byte languages and accelertaor keys
Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:46 pm
by alex.barylski
I was thinking today, about how in Windows, etc you can use shortcut keys like CTRL+C to copy a selected portion of text...some programs go as far as letting you customize those accelorator keys.
What happens if your using a language like chinese where you do not use a keyboard? How do you custom assign the CTRL and some accelerator key?
I wish I could experiement with other languages as that would help clear alot of this stuff up for me, but unfortunately I am stuck with English
Can someone shed some light on this subject for me?

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:17 pm
by feyd
Since when does Chinese not use a keyboard?
Everything maps to a virtual key in Windows. When writing code to handle IME and international keyboards, it's relatively the same from what I've been told. There's always a limited number of keys the keyboard has.
Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:39 pm
by alex.barylski
I recall a conversation with AC in which he told me you use something called a pinyin(???) that doesn't sound like a keyboard to me
I have no idea what one looks like, but again, going on what I remember reading (either from AC or articles) it's something of a mouse upside down where you spin the wheel??? Or I could have been dreaming about that, who knows
Anyways,
If I use HTML accesskey attribute and say assign it something like: accesskey="A" that works in QWERTY keyboards...
But if I translate into chinese (or other language) and the character is accesskey="&6366;&5625;"
Ignoring the fact those entities are likely totally wrong and/or meaningless...those two bytes map to a single virtual keystroke?
So it would be a simple matter of holding the CTRL key and clicking the pinyin character of choice?
basically i can pass that character code as it is converted, same as I would for English?
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:52 pm
by wei
for Chinese character input there are multiple methods of software based input and most people use the standard US keyboard layout to create these input. The one that is used by many is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin which is the standardised phonetics for Mandarin (the phonetics are usually denoted using latin characters and accents).
There are many other ways of input, also using the usual US keyboard layout, that are base on character strokes or composition (these are usually used by typists, it is harder to learn but much faster and accurate).
E.g. Input using Pinyin:

Result:
你好吗
I typed "nihaoma" + space, which results in 3 characters, the input method uses statistics to predict the likelihood of phrases.
basically, the accelerator keys on a Chinese/English systems are almost identical
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 6:53 pm
by alex.barylski
Awesome, thanks wei...that really helped
Thank again
