OS X Chinese input

[Smitty]

In the new version of OS X coming out later this year, Apple has put in a way of entering Chinese by drawing the character on the trackpad(and graphics tablet for those without a laptop, via Inkwell, I hope...).

 

So I'm curious if those that do Chinese language stuff on their computers think that this would be a good iDea or not?

 

About half way down the page for the blurb

[dnoblett]

I was reading that a week or so ago.

Innovative Chinese character input.

 

Until Snow Leopard, if you wanted to enter Chinese characters on a computer, you had to type in the phonetic spelling of Chinese words and the computer would convert them into proper Chinese characters. Snow Leopard offers a breakthrough new way to enter characters: You draw them right on the Multi-Touch trackpad in your Mac notebook. They’ll appear on the screen in a new input window, which recommends characters based on what you drew and lets you choose the right one. The input window even offers suggestions for subsequent characters based on what you chose.

 

 

Looks like the multi-touch pad of the aluminum Mac-books will support this, I don't think the touch pad on my older Black Mac-Book will.

Edited July 1, 2009 by dnoblett (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Fingers have MUCH lower resolution than styli, but the character recognition software I've seen is very good, including for Chinese script

 

Any computer that supports a drawing pad (such as Wacom) will support this with appropriate software.

 

Windows XP includes a Chinese character input under the Japanese IME. The input area is too small, however, so we bought a Wacom tablet from Twinbridge

 

There are several handheld devices which support this, also

[Rob and WeiLing]

I'll admit. I'm not a big fan of Apple or Macs. I do own an iPod Touch, and that is usually good (though I do have my complaints with it). One of the major reasons I bought it was for the multitude of free CHN-ENG-CHN dictionaries on it.

 

(Don't buy the paid ones. They're not worth it. Free ones are better and usually have as many or more features. Only difference is almost all free ones are based on CC-CEDICT. Again, I have my complaints with CC-CEDICT, but I'll keep that discussion for a different time.)

 

In any case, that screenshot dnoblett posted looks identical to the iPod Touch/iPhone input. If you don't follow the correct stroke order, it will present some pretty wacky options. The problem then rises that there is no way to select a character beyond the four listed on the right. Your intended character isn't there? Looks like you gotta erase it all and rewrite.

 

The character displayed (±±¾©'s ±± bei) is pretty simple, and shows probably the best use scenario with it. I can't speak for the desktop version of the software, but trying to write ¸Ð (gan) sucks, even when following proper stroke order.

 

I've had native Chinese, non-English speakers draw onto my iPod, only to erase and redraw about 4 times before finding the character she wanted. Further, I find it's usually faster to simply "type" the character with pinyin. Because of these reasons, I recommend avoiding the drawn input whenever possible. Every native speaker that I know uses Pinyin or BoPoMoFo without issue. (I still use my iPod's drawn input when I don't recognize a character. But if I'm not familiar with the character, I sometimes have stroke order problems which leads to frustration in finding it.)

 

So... It's the new gadget for the week.

Edited July 5, 2009 by Rob and WeiLing (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Hanwang pretty much has a monopoly on the Chinese handwriting recognition - it's used for the Apple, iPhone, Palm, Twinbridge writing pads, handheld translators and other handheld devices.

 

They even make a mouse with a stylus and a character-recognition pad built into it

 

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/03/3-22-07-hanwang_1.jpg

 

Jiaying is a holy terror with it - she usually gets a character recognized as the first on the list. She's never had to use her finger, though.

 

The iPhone apparently uses a full screen recognition, and works well (I hear). http://www.plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1718

 

YM (and especially the finger) MV

[Batmaniac]

We both use Macs now. I was trying to get Ying to throw out her black and white pocket translator and just carry the iphone. WOW. She wouldn't hear of that.

 

She loves OSX though. Very happy with it. When I heard about the chinese characters entered by the track pad she was unimpressed. Said she could enter them faster the old way. There's a nice plug-in for Firefox.

[Randy W]

http://usa.hanvon.com/about/126.shtml

 

In China, Hanwang¡¯s intelligent pattern recognition technology is believed to be best in its class. Hanwang has 86% of the overall market share of pattern recognition products, far surpassing its competitors. Hanwang is ranked No.1 and has monopolized the computer handwriting pen market. Hanwang also holds significant market share positions in drawing tablets and its biometric products are aggressively making inroads into the marketplace.

[Rob and WeiLing]

The iPhone apparently uses a full screen recognition, and works well (I hear). http://www.plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1718

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you've misread:

What I don't like about the iPhone's built-in handwriting recognizer is the small space to write in (at this point in time, it really should be full screen) and it's very poor character prediction for the next character that you would want to write/use.

 

Starting from this post on the page you linked, you can see a few screenshots of the iPhone's drawing input. The shots also confirm what I said earlier: Stroke order is more important than character likeness. That singular focus is what kills me, but at the same time, impresses that poster. I think it all depends on what you're looking to use it for...

 

 

I was trying to get Ying to throw out her black and white pocket translator and just carry the iphone. WOW. She wouldn't hear of that.

 

Before I went to China the first time, I looked at getting one of those black/white pocket translators for myself. I'd seen many international students use them with great success. Then I saw the price. Ouch! If you want a half-decent one that will include pinyin, hanzi, and English, you'll end up paying a hefty amount. More if you want it to speak clearly at all. I just did another search and found some as low as $90. Check the reviews and they're pretty abysmal.

 

Instead, I decided I would get more use from the iPod Touch. However, I don't think that was an option when Ying was getting one. Further, I think she's used to her pocket translator. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

Said she could enter them faster the old way.

 

Yep. I'd like to see someone who can draw faster than they type.

[Randy W]

 

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you've misread:

What I don't like about the iPhone's built-in handwriting recognizer is the small space to write in (at this point in time, it really should be full screen) and it's very poor character prediction for the next character that you would want to write/use.

 

Starting from this post on the page you linked, you can see a few screenshots of the iPhone's drawing input. The shots also confirm what I said earlier: Stroke order is more important than character likeness. That singular focus is what kills me, but at the same time, impresses that poster. I think it all depends on what you're looking to use it for...

 

 

 

Before I went to China the first time, I looked at getting one of those black/white pocket translators for myself. I'd seen many international students use them with great success. Then I saw the price. Ouch! If you want a half-decent one that will include pinyin, hanzi, and English, you'll end up paying a hefty amount. More if you want it to speak clearly at all. I just did another search and found some as low as $90. Check the reviews and they're pretty abysmal.

 

Instead, I decided I would get more use from the iPod Touch. However, I don't think that was an option when Ying was getting one. Further, I think she's used to her pocket translator. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

Said she could enter them faster the old way.

 

Yep. I'd like to see someone who can draw faster than they type.

 

 

Look at the posts from MikeLove - they're the ones developing new software using the Hangwang character recognition on the latest phones. Your guy seems to be talking about an older Apple device.

 

Every WM phone (as far as I know) comes with a stylus, so as long as you get one of those you should be able to draw characters with that pretty much like you'd draw them on paper - the lack of a stylus is mainly an issue on capacitive-touchscreen devices like iPhone and the Palm Pre. We haven't been able to try out handwriting recognition on the Pre yet, but on iPhone at least, with the full width of the screen to use to draw in characters and the much-more-accurate-than-the-built-in-recognizer Hanwang engine behind it handwriting recognition actually seems to work pretty darn well.

 

I don't have an Apple device, but he indicates it seems to work pretty well. We do have several other devices (Twinbridge drawing pad for PC, "expensive" Yishin 888 black and white, and a Sony Palm OS PDA) with the same character recognition software, and, like I said, my wife is a holy terror with all of them. I can usually enter a fairly complex character, once I figure a mean approximation of the stroke order.

 

Stroke order is an integral part of drawing Chinese characters. The OCR software is bad - the handwriting recognition software is excellent, including script formats. You can draw something that looks like a '2', and it will interpret it as 'kou'

Edited July 5, 2009 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Rob and WeiLing]

Look at the posts from MikeLove - they're the ones developing new software using the Hangwang character recognition on the latest phones. Your guy seems to be talking about an older Apple device.

 

Every WM phone (as far as I know) comes with a stylus, so as long as you get one of those you should be able to draw characters with that pretty much like you'd draw them on paper - the lack of a stylus is mainly an issue on capacitive-touchscreen devices like iPhone and the Palm Pre. We haven't been able to try out handwriting recognition on the Pre yet, but on iPhone at least, with the full width of the screen to use to draw in characters and the much-more-accurate-than-the-built-in-recognizer Hanwang engine behind it handwriting recognition actually seems to work pretty darn well.

 

I don't have an Apple device, but he indicates it seems to work pretty well. We do have several other devices (Twinbridge drawing pad for PC, "expensive" Yishin 888 black and white, and a Sony Palm OS PDA) with the same character recognition software, and, like I said, my wife is a holy terror with all of them. I can usually enter a fairly complex character, once I figure a mean approximation of the stroke order.

 

Stroke order is an integral part of drawing Chinese characters. The OCR software is bad - the handwriting recognition software is excellent, including script formats. You can draw something that looks like a '2', and it will interpret it as 'kou'

 

 

MikeLove is not discussing the iPhone, but rather his software (PlecoDict) as it is being developed for all variety of Smart Phones. It took me a few times over to understand these posts as I am neither familiar with smartphone development nor am I familiar with PlecoDict.

 

What I do know, gleaned from the full thread, is that MikeLove is developing PlecoDict for "jailbroken" (or hacked) iPhones in addition to a wide array of other smart phones. What he says is this: Using the full-screen input for our software, it is much more accurate than iPhone's character input.

 

"My guy" is not discussing an older Apple device, as iPhone/iPod Touch were the first Apple device that required a touch screen and/or arbitrary input. Previous Apple devices did not have any kind of Chinese input as they were simply music players. Not long ago (week or two), I shelled out a measly $10 for the new Apple iPhone/iPod Touch OS software 3.0. I can tell you, from experience, that "hairyleprechaun" is discussing the iPhone input (as it is in OS 3.0, released 17 June 2009).

 

Actually, hairyleprechaun is arguing that the default iPhone drawn input is better than MikeLove makes it out to be. hairyleprechaun says that he can draw a character quite quickly, and the iPhone will still recognize it. Again, I implore you to look at his screenshots. If you like, I will create a screenshot of whatever drawing you would like. Smiley face? ¸Ð? Scribbles?

 

As for stroke order, I know that it is an integral part of the Chinese script. But for my own purposes, it is the bottom of my priorities in terms of learning the language. I focus most on listening, followed by speaking, reading, and finally writing, in that order. Most of my Chinese learning has been informal through immersion and use, but I have taken one short class on the basics of the language so I'm familiar with the general rules of stroke order. That doesn't mean I always get them right. You also said, yourself, that you do okay "once [you] figure a mean approximation of the stroke order." I never said drawn characters was useless or impossible. I simply was responding to Smitty's question: "for those who use Chinese on computers, good idea or not?" I told him that for my own purposes, it was not a good idea and I find myself using pinyin input almost exclusively (with the exception being when I don't recognize a character). I also mentioned that the one time I asked a Chinese person to use it, she also got it wrong. Granted, she was a nanny to a family in Beijing and may not have had as much formal education as others, but she was still a native Chinese woman.

 

 

Edit: P.S - As compared to the iPod Touch and iPhone, Yinshin 888 is slightly expensive. Further, convert its price to RMB and the Chinese standard of living and it's a bit of money; not something that a Chinese would want to part with had she already bought it. As I stated before, I'm not an Apple Fanboy, but I would recommend the iPod Touch over even the Yinshin 888 to anyone looking for a new pocket dictionary.

Edited July 5, 2009 by Rob and WeiLing (see edit history)

[Guest Wuhan4me]

Smitty - I wouldn't rely on the pad for the only input.

 

IMO, it's too small, regardess if using finger or stylus.

 

IMO, an external pad, at least 4 x 4 inches is wicked, for mondo fast input.

 

IMO, a coupling of a good pad with the right software, handles all the speed one needs. UNLESS you are a developer of 'character input devices' - IMO, you won't really use the pad on the MAC to it's full potential. Venn Diagram? Who is left after the developers, you ask?

 

USERS... If a user can't get 'up to speed' with this pad, it's useless.

IMO, it'll be useless cause it's too small.

 

But I must ask, you, directly - is this an issue, for you and yours? Did the lass finally show up?

[Randy W]

 

 

MikeLove is not discussing the iPhone, but rather his software (PlecoDict) as it is being developed for all variety of Smart Phones. It took me a few times over to understand these posts as I am neither familiar with smartphone development nor am I familiar with PlecoDict.

 

What I do know, gleaned from the full thread, is that MikeLove is developing PlecoDict for "jailbroken" (or hacked) iPhones in addition to a wide array of other smart phones. What he says is this: Using the full-screen input for our software, it is much more accurate than iPhone's character input.

 

"My guy" is not discussing an older Apple device, as iPhone/iPod Touch were the first Apple device that required a touch screen and/or arbitrary input. Previous Apple devices did not have any kind of Chinese input as they were simply music players. Not long ago (week or two), I shelled out a measly $10 for the new Apple iPhone/iPod Touch OS software 3.0. I can tell you, from experience, that "hairyleprechaun" is discussing the iPhone input (as it is in OS 3.0, released 17 June 2009).

 

Actually, hairyleprechaun is arguing that the default iPhone drawn input is better than MikeLove makes it out to be. hairyleprechaun says that he can draw a character quite quickly, and the iPhone will still recognize it. Again, I implore you to look at his screenshots. If you like, I will create a screenshot of whatever drawing you would like. Smiley face? ¸Ð? Scribbles?

 

As for stroke order, I know that it is an integral part of the Chinese script. But for my own purposes, it is the bottom of my priorities in terms of learning the language. I focus most on listening, followed by speaking, reading, and finally writing, in that order. Most of my Chinese learning has been informal through immersion and use, but I have taken one short class on the basics of the language so I'm familiar with the general rules of stroke order. That doesn't mean I always get them right. You also said, yourself, that you do okay "once [you] figure a mean approximation of the stroke order." I never said drawn characters was useless or impossible. I simply was responding to Smitty's question: "for those who use Chinese on computers, good idea or not?" I told him that for my own purposes, it was not a good idea and I find myself using pinyin input almost exclusively (with the exception being when I don't recognize a character). I also mentioned that the one time I asked a Chinese person to use it, she also got it wrong. Granted, she was a nanny to a family in Beijing and may not have had as much formal education as others, but she was still a native Chinese woman.

 

 

Edit: P.S - As compared to the iPod Touch and iPhone, Yinshin 888 is slightly expensive. Further, convert its price to RMB and the Chinese standard of living and it's a bit of money; not something that a Chinese would want to part with had she already bought it. As I stated before, I'm not an Apple Fanboy, but I would recommend the iPod Touch over even the Yinshin 888 to anyone looking for a new pocket dictionary.

 

 

Point being that Hanwang is not only the standard, but pretty much the ONLY Chinese character recognition software out there

 

My wife likes it, and gets a high degree of recognition with it - rarely having to redraw or even choose anything other than the first character on the list

 

The only drawback for a particular device might be the input device - size of the pad, or stylus vs finger - and whether it's a dictionary, or a full sentence translator.

[Smitty]

Smitty - I wouldn't rely on the pad for the only input.

 

IMO, it's too small, regardess if using finger or stylus.

 

IMO, an external pad, at least 4 x 4 inches is wicked, for mondo fast input.

 

IMO, a coupling of a good pad with the right software, handles all the speed one needs. UNLESS you are a developer of 'character input devices' - IMO, you won't really use the pad on the MAC to it's full potential. Venn Diagram? Who is left after the developers, you ask?

 

USERS... If a user can't get 'up to speed' with this pad, it's useless.

IMO, it'll be useless cause it's too small.

 

But I must ask, you, directly - is this an issue, for you and yours? Did the lass finally show up?

I don't have a laptop with a pad, but I did replace my ADB(I need better ADB support in OS X!) 6 by 9 Wacom with a 4 by 5 Wacom when ChumpUSA was dying.

 

Don't have me and mine yet to test it on.

 

Just looking for opinions from those that have used such a system in the past. I hope it works better than the recognition in my Newton!

[dnoblett]

Snow Leopard was released last friday.

 

I picked up a copy, it installed easily enough, many neat refinements, I mar stop using Adobe reader because preview handles PDFs nicely, many other enhancements that are cool like improved expose, and finder.

 

Well worth the $29.99 for one computer, or $49.99 for up to 5 computers.

[Batmaniac]

How much space did it free up on your HD? Mine should be here Monday. I pre-ordered the family-pack at Amazon a couple of months ago and somehow got it for 43.99.