amandalam | # 1 | 2010-06-25, 20:13 | Report

This software attempts to implement the Stroke Order Chinese Input Method as found in other Nokia Symbian phones sold in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, by utilizing Maemo 5's Hildon User Interface.

Changes in version 0.6-1 (2011-05-09):

• Fixed an issue in "Display button & icon in system menu" option where devices without sudo rights were unable to use that feature successfully. (Thanks to ywca for reporting this bug!)

Changes in version 0.6 (2011-04-25):

• Expanded the candidate character selection area to allow more candidate characters to be displayed at any one time (based on nkkj's suggestion), and hence reducing the need to scroll through the selection area.
• Renamed "Send SMS" to "SMS", and moved to button to be in between the "Copy" button and the "←" button.
• Based on jinjianlove7's suggestion, "Automatic Screen Rotation" and "Enforce Screen Orientation" (Landscape/Portrait) options are now available in the program menu. A few screen orientation related issues have been fixed too.
• Added "Display button & icon in system menu" option in the Settings page so that user can choose whether or not to have the "筆" icon in the system tray and the shortcut button in the system menu.
• Since selecting characters and their associated phrases will update their frequency data in database, performance drop is expected over days due disarrayed indexing and data fragmentation. A new feature named "Optimize Phrase Library" is provided to let user optimize the phrase library regularly for better performance.
• Since more items have been added to the Settings page, the Settings page is now vertically scrollable.
• Added "Speak in Mandarin", "Speak in Cantonese" and "Stop Speaking" buttons in the program menu. (Requires "eSpeak GUI Client", or the "espeak" and "espeak-extra-data" packages)
• Added Associated Phrase selection support for English, Numeric and Symbolic Characters. (Experimental feature with very limited selection values; must be used in conjunction with English / Numeric / Symbolic Virtual Keyboard)
• Added key press-and-hold feature in English / Numeric / Symbolic Virtual Keyboard that simulates the behaviour of real keys on physical keyboard --- when pressing-and-holding a virtual key in the English / Numeric / Symbolic Virtual Keyboard, that specific character will be inputted repetitively; when pressing-and-holding the Backspace key, deletion of text will be performed until user releases the virtual key.
• Added hundreds of Cantonese associated phrases and popular slangs for Cantonese users' convenience.
• Added a "Sponsor" button in the program menu for those who would like to sponsor the continuous development of this app by paying online.

Changes in version 0.5 (2010-12-26):

• Improved overall performance of character and associated phrase selection by code refactoring, making use of multithreading, SQL statement fine-tuning and better database table indexing.
• Due to performance consideration and usability concerns, selecting a Traditional Chinese character only lists out Traditional Chinese version of its associated phrases; and vice versa for Simplified Chinese.
• Fine-tuned the default character selection order by adjusting the frequency of the most commonly used characters.
• The maximum 75 characters selection limit when entering the first four strokes of a character is now lifted due to SQL statement fine-tuning. Such limit poses a potential problem of causing user not being able to select particular characters that have exactly matched the number of strokes inputted after some everyday use, due to the frequency-favored behaviour of candidate characters display logic.
• Improved virtual keyboard layout based on talk.maemo.org users' comments for better thumb-using, and hide the blue status bar when virtual keyboard is displayed to provide more room for the text area and the virtual keyboard.
• Added support for full-width English, Numeric and Symbolic characters in virtual keyboard.
• Added Full Screen Mode and application logo.
• Swap the position between the Copy and the Backspace buttons for easier acccess to the Backspace button during text input.
• Fixed the bug where copying empty text resulted in pasting the word "None" from the system clipboard.
• Fixed various bugs related to orientation detection.

Changes in version 0.4 (2010-09-07):

• Introduced a new virtual keyboard for English, numeric & symbolic characters.
• Display candidate character list by usage frequency, by making use of the "Record usage frequency of characters from stroke inputs" and "Record usage frequency of characters' associated phrases" settings.
• New "Reset usage frequency data" feature that allows user to reset all usage frequency data back to system's default settings.
• New Settings page for virtual keyboard and candidate character listing by usage frequency features.
• The associated phrase library has been extended significantly by adding train station names, names of popular places, names of popular government officials and politicians, names of academies, names of pop stars, names of mass media companies and some popular phrases in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Changes in version 0.3 (2010-08-13):

• Introduced "Strokes Enquiry" feature that allows you to enquire and copy the strokes of any particular Chinese character. This feature would be useful to those who would like to learn Chinese characters and their stroke orders.
• Fixed the issue where the candidate character list was not shown instantly after typing an English or Symbolic character followed by pressing the wildcard button.
• Increase the maximum number of candidate characters selectable for 4 or less strokes to 75. This is to ensure all Chinese characters with exactly 4 strokes are covered.

Changes in version 0.2-2 (2010-08-12):

• Fixed the potential installation failure of status menu button due to missing dependency declaration.

Changes in version 0.2-1 (2010-07-05):

• Always set input focus on text area after text insertion and text pasting.
• Fixed the issue where the input cursor always moved to the end after text insertion and text pasting.
• Fixed the issue where the Copy button copied the contact numbers instead of the text area contents to the clipboard after the SMS Preview page has been closed and input focus is not yet returned back to the text area.

Changes in version 0.2 (2010-07-01):

• Revamped User Interface - Stroke buttons moved to near the bottom of the screen, candidate character selection list moved to the right, English and symbol buttons moved to the bottom.
• Adjust sizes of the buttons based on screen orientation automatically
• Moved the SMS feature to a separate StackWindow page. Introduced SMS message preview (showing how long messages are broken) and a new numeric keypad.
• Rename the Clear button to "New message" button and move it to the program menu.
• Added the Paste button to the program menu. The Copy button is also available in the program menu.
• The last character of an associated phrase is now used as the key to obtain the list of its associated phrases.
• Space character is also added to the English character list for easier typing.
• Show friendly instructions as user clicks the stroke buttons and makes selection on characters.
• English mode is turned on by default.
• Pressing the new status menu button will launch a new program instance.

The following features are provided:

• Inputting Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese characters by pressing one or more of the five basic strokes
• Wildcard character "?" support.
• Showing candidate characters that match the strokes in a TouchSelector control.
• Once a character is inputted, its associated phrases will be displayed for selection.
• Inputting English characters and symbols by clicking through the TouchSelector items.
• Sending SMS to local/international numbers of one or more recipients, and then write the sent record back to the Conversations database.
• Message length detection and breaking long SMS message into multiple ones.
• English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Cantonese User Interfaces are displayed based on current system language.
• Associated phrases are displayed in their Traditional / Simplified Chinese order based on current system language. - Landscape and portrait mode support.

Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgruAJqNbNs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55_g_fhr53I, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMJ5d-sMPSg and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztM_MntCNCU

This software is now available for download at the Maemo.org Extras-devel repository. As always, software in this repository could be risky to your system, and so please make sure you know what you are doing before downloading any apps from that repository.

More screenshots and explanation are available in my Chinese blog.

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Last edited by amandalam; 2011-05-08 at 19:39.

cheve | # 2 | 2010-06-26, 01:24 | Report

downloaded it, tried it. it is awesome. I have never been able to master other input methods, this feel so natural. Many thanks.

hpink | # 3 | 2010-06-26, 02:43 | Report

great, now the only problem is to learn stroke order Chinese. does this remove virtual keyboard?

cheve | # 4 | 2010-06-26, 02:56 | Report

@hpink: the virtual keyboard still pops up - but for me, it is no big deal

hpink | # 5 | 2010-06-26, 03:38 | Report

Thanks for the info. Hope Amanda can release a pinyin input integrated with the virtual keyboard.

amandalam | # 6 | 2010-06-26, 03:42 | Report

As I live in Hong Kong, I'm not familiar with pinyin or zhuyin

cheve | # 7 | 2010-06-26, 04:04 | Report

@hpink: Stoke order is not that difficult to use once you learn the pattern of the word Typically, things starts from top or left and goes 'around' to the bottom. ok. I did have 6years of primary school opportunity to get that drilled into my head. as in many things, it just takes time to get to konw it well.

cheers

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Last edited by cheve; 2010-06-26 at 11:34.

cheve | # 8 | 2010-06-26, 04:18 | Report

@amandalam, just wondering how many unique words are in the current database?

amandalam | # 9 | 2010-06-26, 05:43 | Report

This is known by running SELECT DISTINCT Count statements...

There are 21342 unique characters in the database, with 81960 unique associated phrases (sum of English, Symbols, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese characters).

amandalam | # 10 | 2010-07-01, 10:52 | Report

I have uploaded the v0.2 to the maemo.org extras-devel repository.

Changes in version 0.2 (2010-07-01):

• Revamped User Interface - Stroke buttons moved to near the bottom of the screen, candidate character selection list moved to the right, English and symbol buttons moved to the bottom.
• Adjust sizes of the buttons based on screen orientation automatically
• Moved the SMS feature to a separate StackWindow page. Introduced SMS message preview (showing how long messages are broken) and a new numeric keypad.
• Rename the Clear button to "New message" button and move it to the program menu.
• Added the Paste button to the program menu. The Copy button is also available in the program menu.
• The last character of an associated phrase is now used as the key to obtain the list of its associated phrases.
• Space character is also added to the English character list for easier typing.
• Show friendly instructions as user clicks the stroke buttons and makes selection on characters.
• English mode is turned on by default.
• Pressing the new status menu button will launch a new program instance.

Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMJ5d-sMPSg

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Last edited by amandalam; 2010-07-01 at 11:10.