Depending on your HanZi font setting, the Chinese characters used in this document may not be displayed correctly. If you only use the Chinese fonts distributed with Unicorn Editor, there is should not be any problem. In case you see unreadable characters, select them and then try to set them to different Chinese HanZi font. This should correct the problem.
1) Basic Input Method:
Different languages have different input methods which generate different codes. If you use one of the simplified Chinese input method module, you always get gb (not big5 code). The same applies to other language input module.
As the Unicorn Editor is launched, the default input method is Roman. You should see a input panel at the left bottom of the screen with "English". You can click on it to see the available loaded input methods popup menu. The one menu right below the "English" input is the "internal code" input method. All other input methods are optional and configuable.
For illustration, I will take toned pin-yin input in the simplified Chinese input methods as example. (Supposed you have installed the simplified Chinese input method. )
By typing "tai4", the input method will search for all the Chinese characters with this pronunciation and show them in the display window (see above figure). If your desired character is shown in the window, you can either use mouse or key-in number to select the character. If the desired characters is not in the list, you can use mouse to click on the right arrow shown the window above or just hit right arrow key for next display of the rest of the characters.
If you choose to input without the tone, you will use the above input method. The selection of the characters in universal.
You can also use the English->Chinese input method which is available for both simp. and trad. Chinese input method. You will see the following screens:
2) Punctuation Input Method:
The »´Ω« or •˛ßŒ input module provides a default punctuation input. This module has a file name like !*MBFullWidth, or !*MBQJ, or simply !*QJ. Note this file is specific for each language. Without it, only generic ascii punctuation is used.
There can be only one default 2-byte punctuation input. You have to decide which language you will use most frequently and only only keep that module in the HanZi Input folder. The punctuation code generate will be specific to its default language. For example, if you only keep the "!*MBQJ" which is a simp. chinese module, every default punctuation code will be in GB, i.e., you have to use simp. Chinese font to see it. Similarly, if you have "!*MBFullWidth" installed, the code will be always in big5 and therefore must be viewed in trad. Chinese font for proper display.
The default punctuation input method has two mode: 1-byte ascii punctuation, or the 2-byte default punctuation. In the former case, only the generic ascii (Roman) punctuation will be input when typing, e.g., type "." gets a ".". In the later case, only the 2-byte default punctuation will be inputed when typing, e.g., type"." gets a "°£". The right most bottom icon underneath the input method menu indicates the input state. indicates 2-byte punctuatioin input and indicates ascii punctuation input . Use mouse to click on it or type shift-cmd-spc can toggle the state.
Each Language also will have its own input method for punctuation. If you are not satisfied with the default punctuation input or you try to input punctuation code in a language different from the default one, you can switch the punctuation input method module which gives you a list of choice. The corresponding input method file name is always !#MBPunct for Chinese and !#Punct for Korean and Japanese. Remember: this file is different for different language and is not exchangable. See Configuration Guide if you want to have mixed language environment.
The first of the above is big5 input while the second is for gb input. The punctuation input is optional. One can use other method for punctuation, such as the code pad input discussed below.
3) Code Pad Input:
You can access the internal code directly by code pad. In the following figure, the square pointed by the mouse arrow is the code pad icon. Click on it, a windon popup showing the Language font glyph and its corresponding internal code. For example, A1A3 corresponds to the period in Chinese. For some rarely seen character, one can always resort to code pad to search for the right symbol. To choose the desired character using cod pad, use mouse to click on the character or use scroll bar to scroll to next page for further display.
If one clicks on the icon as shown in the following figure, a key pad shows up. This key pad is important for some of the input methods, such as bopomofo (zhuyin input method). It shows the key board layout.
4) Advanced Input Method:
For Chinese and Japanese, there is association search for speeding up the input. To access this feature, a) make sure you have the input method module installed. For simplified Chinese(GB), the module file name is "simple". For traditional Chinese (big5), the module file names are "pharse" and "association". For Japanese, the module file name is "phrase_JIS". These files must be in the same HanZi Input folder as other input methods, to access this feature, use mouse to click the left bottom icon will popup a menu. Enable the desired item under the "¡p∑Q§˘ªy" (big5 codeset) menu. Choose ¡p∑Q or µ¸∑J for big5 input, ¡™œÎ or ¥ ª„ for gb input or ∏Ï◊√ for Japanese (EUC/Shift-JIS). (If you can not see above code, switch the font of the unreadable word to other HanZi font. If that does not help, you probably does not have the font for that language)
In a similar way, big5 input of ∏U with ¡p∑Q enabled will give rise to the following:
In traditional Chinese (big5), there is another method not available to other language. It is the µ¸∑J. An example is shown as following:
It is up to user's preference to set these advanced features in his own input environment.
(The maximum number of these association dictionaries is 4. That means even if you put 5 such dictionaries into the HanZi Input folder, only 4 of them will be loaded. The loading sequence is decided by the file name. )
5) Wildcard Input:
Unicorn Editor, like MacBlue Telnet or CXterm, the X-Window origin of both softwares, allows wildcard input. The input wild card is "*" and "_". The former stands for any characters, the later stands for any phonetics number. The "*" can replace "_" when it is used in the position of phonetics.
Use wildcard input may also accelerate the input speed. For example, in Δ¥“Ù "za*" will bring up all choices corresponding to "za", "zai", "zao", "zan", "zang" with any phonetics and type "zhao_" will bring up all choices include "zhao1", "zhao2", "zhao3", "zhao4". "*" is the wildcard for any character or phonetics number. "_" is the wildcard for phonetics number.
It is thus obvious that one has to develop a good strategy to take advantage of wildcard input. Too long a choice list certainly will not help you with your inputing speed.
