Chinese Stroker-Order Input Method on Cellphones

[ipsi()]

So what exactly is this called? And can anyone point me to some instructions (In English!) on how to use it? I'm looking at buying a second hand phone which can text in Chinese at some point, and it'd be nice to be able to use the Stroke Order Input Method.

Thanks all.

[imron]

It is called 五笔画 (not to be confused with 五笔字型), and you can find a good description of it in English here. Some phones will have a slightly different version of this, where you just type every stroke in order, rather than just the first, second, third and last stroke as described on the page above. It's pretty simple to check which variant your phone uses though, and the above page contains all the info you need to know.

Edit:The above page calls the method 五笔划, but it seems that 五笔画 is more common usage.