[WEB4LIB] Re: language conversion software

[Calvin Hsu]

Great information. As to:
"if you need pinyin input for traditional chinese you may be out of luck"
This is no longer a problem with Global IME bundled with Win2K/XP: just
change the IME settings for Traditional Chinese (Control Panel >Regional
Options >Input Locales >Traditional Chinese IME >IME settings >middle tab)
to "luoma pinyin (R)."

--Calvin

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Calvin Hsu
Coordinator of Public and Information Services
Asia Library, University of Michigan
734-764-0408; hsucal at umich.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Andrew Cunningham
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 4:26 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: language conversion software


Hi,

Jenny Paradiso wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> I was wondering if anyone is using language conversion software on their =
> Public Access Computers?
>

"language conversion" is an inappropriate discription, it is essentially
a third party input software that also allows transcoding.

> We are considering purchasing 'NJStar Communicator 2.23', which allows the
=
> user to view, input and convert Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters on
=
> normal english or western windows.
>
> Would love to hear from anyone who has been using this software, or =
> another package with similar functionality.
>

What precisely functionality do you want? The fact that you're looking
at commercial products rather than free alternatives suggests that you
have explicit functional requirements.

the cheapest solution is the "free" microsoft one. On Win95/98/ME
download teh CJK langauge packs for Internet Explorer (if you're using
Netscape 4/6 you'll only be interested in the fonts. Then install the
CJK Global IMEs. ON win2000/XP just install the various langauges as you
would any other language from the installation cd-rom. Depending on how
your IT staff has customised the installation of Windows, this may or
may not have already been done. Limitations with this approach: Global
IMEs will only work with selected software. Although this isn't a
problem with Win2000/XP CJK support (where you just need a unicode aware
program). The main limittation is actually with the chinese input. A
limited number of input methods are offerred. And from memory if you
need pinyin input for traditional chinese you may be out of luck.

Among the commercial products Unionway, Twinbridge, NJStar, and RichWin
are the ones that first come to mind. There are lots of others. Have a
look at Majorie Chan's China Links
[http://www.cohums.ohio-state.edu/deall/chan.9/c-links.htm].

The major difference between each of them is price, choice of input
methods and operating systems supported. Best to choose a product that
supports the input methods you need. The last version of a survey of
home internet/computer usage I saw published by the HK SAR gaovernment
indicated less than 30% of users in HK could use chinese input software.
I'm assuming that you're patrons would be relatively similar to ours in
Vic. in which case you're more established chinese communities are
chinese speakers from Vietnam, and Chinese from Hong Kong, Your fastest
growing group would probably be from PRC, with a smattering from other
locations in south-east asia and the pacific. Knowledge of chinese input
methods will not be common.

Ability to use a chinese input method is dependant on familiarity with
chinese computing and education. Pin Yin input, for instance, is better
suited to younger people from PRC who would have learnt varying degrees
of pinyin in their early schooling.

You may wnat to go for a more expensive option of using graphics tablet
input for chinese. Some of the chinese softwrae can integrate with
graphic tablets to allow input of hanzi.

Specifically, wrt NJStar Communicator, it one of the least expensive
IMEs, and very versitile. NJStar is useful for clobbering files with
brute force, and I've found it useful when needing to display
traditional characters as simplified or simplified as traditional, or
when a web server or web page incorrectly identifies the character set
(only really required on Netscape4 since more recent browsers allow oyu
to override the server or page settings).

If third party input software is being used for web based email and
creating word processing documents that will be snet to other people,
then there a few pitfalls to be aware of. Email to be readable by the
recipient needs to have the correct mime type identified. With the
newest versions of Office etc, its a good idea to use the softwares
language tagging capabilities.

Hope this is of some help.


Andrew


Andrew Cunningham
Multilingual Technical Officer
Accessibility and Evaluation Unit, Victoria
State Library of Victoria
Australia

andrewc at vicnet.net.au

http://www.openroad.net.au/

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~andrewc/





> Thanks in advance,
>
> Jenny Paradiso
>
> Jenny Paradiso
> Librarian, Information Technology
>
> West Torrens Libraries
> Brooker Terrace
> HILTON  SA  5033
> Ph: (08) 8416 6255
> Fax: (08) 8234 5170
> email: jparadis at wtcc.sa.gov.au
>
> West Torrens Libraries... learn, grow and enjoy!
>
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