| Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 23:11:49 +0800
| From: Fergal Daly <fergal@esatclear.ie>
|
| 7.3 seems to support Chinese input out of the box, it's got
| miniChinput and some other stuff no documentation.  [ ... ]
| google is a bit of a dead too.
|
| Can anyone tell me what I should do?
I've no idea, but a relevant/useful source of info could
be the «linux-utf8» e-list:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html
http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
whilst the list is nominally about UTF-8/Unicode and Linux,
it often delves into related areas (such as input methods).
my (vague!) understanding of the state-of-play is there are
multiple ways of keyboarding scripts such as "Chinese", and
the choice of method is a mixture of personal preference,
equipment (e.g. your keyboard), and the tool/application
in question.
w.r.t. X11 applications, it seems to boil down to two
approaches:   one unique to the tool itself (apparently
`yudit' is famous for this);  or  else using what's called
an XIM (X Input Method).
WARNING: I am now guessing quite a bit here, based mostly on
my interpretation of what I've read whilst lurking,
and watching a few people keyboarding a Japanese
script years ago!   *** your mileage will vary! ***
XIMs generally work as a complex compose frontend.  i.e., you
build up your character as a series of composes of the root or
fundamental strokes ("radicals", I think they are called), and
then "commit" the composite character to the application.
( yes, keyboarding these scripts _is_ quite slow, I believe
a good typist can only do a few characters a minute!
and I assume using a qwerty keyboard is very painful. )
some XIMs compose "in place", others do it on a special line,
and some seem to do it in a special window (or the root?).
also, some(/most?) XIMs apparently support a US-ASCII input
mode as well --- _not_ a general Latin-alphabet input mode,
which seems to require another TLA, called KBD, and which
apparently doesn't work when an XIM is also being used? ---
implying you have to switch back and forth between US-ASCII
input mode (what us English-speakers would call "normal"
keyboarding/typing), and the other input (e.g., Chinese).
I'm not sure, but I have the impression the switch is often
a toggle, and something like <Control><CapsLock>.
many apologies if this is completely wrong or too misleading.
cheers!
-blf-
p.s.  b.t.w., you almost certainly want to be using a UTF-8
locale.  if RH 7.3 is the so-called "limbo" release,
then you may quite possibility be using one by default.
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