Xref: utzoo soc.culture.china:9561 soc.culture.japan:1479 comp.graphics:3887 comp.editors:458 comp.text:2894 misc.misc:4138 comp.fonts:436 comp.misc:4377
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!wasatch!thomson
From: thomson@wasatch.UUCP (Rich Thomson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,soc.culture.japan,comp.graphics,comp.editors,comp.text,misc.misc,comp.fonts,comp.misc
Subject: Chinese character input scheme -- call for references
Keywords: Chinese characters
Message-ID: <789@wasatch.UUCP>
Date: 13 Dec 88 08:58:04 GMT
Reply-To: thomson@wasatch.utah.edu.UUCP (Rich Thomson)
Followup-To: comp.graphics
Organization: Oasis Technologies
Lines: 50

[ Please excuse the large newsgroup list, but also note that follow-ups are
  directed to comp.graphics. ]

I'm interested in a scheme for entering Chinese characters via a keyboard.
I've come up with the idea on my own, but the scheme seems obvious.  So
ovious that I imagine someone has already implemented it.

The basic problem is to design a user interface for input of Chinese
characters in a fashion that is analogous to the writing of the character
as a sequences of strokes.  There are 24 different basic strokes that I
know of for Chinese calligraphy, although there may be more.

When someone writes a Chinese character, the basic strokes are always written
in accordance with a set of rules (left to right, top to bottom, etc).  The
sequence of basic strokes comprising a character is consistent from person
to person.  Similarly, when printing the letter 'h', we are always taught to
draw the stem '|' first, and then the tail to complete the letter.

The user interface for input of the character should use the stroke
information (encoded on a key, for instance) in combination with the order
of the strokes to uniquely identify a given Chinese character, or perhaps
learn a new character.  The Roman alphabet equivalent is already
implemented in real-time spelling checker/completion programs that
currently run on many machines.

I believe that this is a most natural scheme for entering the characters as
it mimics the act of writing the character calligraphically.  This means
the user need only adapt their current method of writing characters for
machine input.  Similar to learning to type English words by pressing
sequences of letter keys in conjunction with the SHIFT key.

There is also the subtle issue of size in conjunction with the stroke type
and sequence.  The same stroke appears in many different characters but of
different sizes, so the user must be provided some fashion of adjusting the
size of the stroke to fit the character; perhaps an ALT, SHIFT or META key
can serve to identify this modifier to the stroke.

Given this type of a scheme, does anyone know of any implementations of
similar character entry systems, possibly for Japanese or other oriental
character sets?  Are there any journals (again, possibly Japanese) devoted
to the problem of oriental native language I/O?  Any references to
articles, journals, books, programs, etc., would be greatly appreciated.

					Thanks in advance,
						-- Rich
-- 
Rich Thomson	thomson@cs.utah.edu  {bellcore,hplabs}!utah-cs!thomson
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with
us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain
too cheap, we esteem too lightly." Thomas Paine, _The Crisis_, Dec. 23rd, 1776