五笔划 (wubihua) input method for windows?

[shibole]

Sorry if this is already answered somewhere but I didn't see it in the wiki.

Does anyone have a link to some free Windows IME software for 五笔划?

I don't plan to use it seriously, just want to be basically familiar with it, but I was thinking that it might be useful to my mother-in-law. (Currently she knows no computer input method, she feels that she's too old (or just doesn't want to) learn pinyin, and I'm guessing she isn't going to like the idea of learning 五笔字型 much better than the idea of learning pinyin.)

[choisum]

She may also be interested in using a writing pad. The basic no frills ones are pretty cheap.

[imron]

You can use the google or the sogou pinyin IMEs to do this.

Just type u and then any combination of

h - 横 heng (horizontal)

s - 竖 shu (vertical)

p - 撇 pie (left falling)

n - 捺 na (right falling)

z - 折 zhe (hook)

d - 点 dian (dot)

based on the stroke order of the character you want to type.

(note d and n do the same thing, so upd is the same as upn)

So, for example, the character 木 is made up of the strokes 横 竖 撇 捺 in that order. So to type it using google's pinyin IME you would type: uhspn

The characters 你好 can be typed using: upspzspn uzphzs

etc. etc.

[shibole]

She may also be interested in using a writing pad. The basic no frills ones are pretty cheap.

I had thought about that but sort of forgotten about it. Do you know of a decent one? I wonder if I could find some place in China that takes paypal or something other than a Chinese bank card and have one shipped to her.

You can use the google or the sogou pinyin IMEs to do this.

Ah cool, I hadn't messed with either of those yet. Any opinion on which one is better?

Only thing that worries me about the google one, maybe the sogou one too, is that it sounds like it might transmit stuff off to some google server to do improved predictive text matching on phrases or something. Not that I care much if the level of stuff I can type like "我家有三個人" gets logged somewhere but still....

[yonglin]

Only thing that worries me about the google one, maybe the sogou one too, is that it sounds like it might transmit stuff off to some google server to do improved predictive text matching on phrases or something. Not that I care much if the level of stuff I can type like "我家有三個人" gets logged somewhere but still....

These programs use what people enter into the search field of the affiliated search engines (and possibly the text masses that these search engines go through and cache every day...?) to create the databases improving the pinyin to hanzi matching, not whatever you type locally at your computer. Imagine what would happen if they did: my bank account would be empty several times!

[choisum]

> I had thought about that but sort of forgotten about it.

> Do you know of a decent one? I wonder if I could find some place in China

> that takes paypal or something other than a Chinese bank card

> and have one shipped to her.

Is your mil in China? Because they are not so hard to find, she probably just needs to know what to look for.

Otherwise you can find them on yesasia, http://global.yesasia.com/en/Electronics/Recommendations.aspx/version-cm/did-10857/

The one I use is listed as the PenPower E-Kitten Junior Handwriter which allows you to write a single character at a time.

[curiosityscat]

I am so in awe of you people...and by people I mean everyone I have read postings of (and the person that helped me this morning)..for someone who is just learning (by herself and on her own currently w/just Pimselur CDs)...it's like not yet behing able to walk...and watching an Olympic Winner run or leap 8 ft in the air....

I wanna be "Like Mike" (i.e. like all of ya'll)...

Okay, my question is, nifty website posted regarding YesAsia...but, I definitely can not read the box according to the picture....Is a good comparible product for English Non-Mandarin speaking, just learning on her own and she seriously needs help people?

I really like the pen/stylus input and the softward converter....there is no way I can keep up with the enter nhzpu keys method of trying to type pinyin or chinese characters, not with trying to learn Mandarin from Audio tapes, downloaded memory character games - which have apparently 30 meanings per character, flash cards and looking/utilizing an online-chinese-dictionary (who also gives up a long list of multiple answers to something a one English word inquiry ..like "handsome"..*shrugs*..sorry, a little beginner / no tutor (nor one available - trust me, I've looked I desperately as I want to hire one locally) frustration ....*tucks her frustration back in as it is showing*...(sh)...*smiles*...this language is hard to learn on your own.

Xie Xie Ni

[imron]

Only thing that worries me about the google one, maybe the sogou one too, is that it sounds like it might transmit stuff off to some google server to do improved predictive text matching on phrases or something.

You can prevent this sort of thing happening if you have decent firewall software installed (I use the free version of ZoneAlarm under Windows) that allows you to specify which processes are and aren't allowed internet access.

[foodtarget]

You can use the google or the sogou pinyin IMEs to do this.

Just type u and then any combination of

h - 横 heng (horizontal)

s - 竖 shu (vertical)

p - 撇 pie (left falling)

n - 捺 na (right falling)

z - 折 zhe (hook)

d - 点 dian (dot)

OMG! I just found this thread and I had no earthly idea that Google Pinyin IME could do this. Really, is there anything Google Pinyin can't do? This would have saved me a lot of time a few months ago when I was wasting my life away trying to figure out Cangjie. I'm gonna go experiment with Wubihua now...

[imron]

If you're learning Simplified characters (and your location says Xiamen, so I'm presuming yes), I would recommend Wubizixing. Wubihua is a really inefficient way to type characters.

[foodtarget]

Wubihua is a really inefficient way to type characters.

Yea, I never intended to use Wubihua as my only method for typing characters, but to type characters that I don't know the pinyin spelling for (which was my original reason for trying to learn Cangjie). But thanks for the link, I'll check out Wubixing

[Hofmann]

NJStar Chinese Pen doesn't require a writing pad. You can write with a mouse.

[mlefkon]

Hi, looking over this thread I see that people have posted solutions in terms of writing pads but no links to a WuBiHua IME for Windows. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[imron]

Actually, if you go back and read post number 3, you'll see that someone (me) did post how to use the google or sogou IMEs to type in Wubihua.

[mlefkon]

Ah, thanks for that. I originally saw it and thought it was a web based editor, not a PC based IME. Downloaded & installed the Google one and now works well. I'll include the URLs for anybody else who needs them:

http://tools.google.com/pinyin/

http://www.sogou.com/pinyin/

[Lugubert]

I sometimes try Windows' Japanese mouse writing utility. I like the way it offers guesses already after a few first strokes. Wenlin mouse writing appears to me as rather picky about stroke order and general exactness. Plecodict on my handheld will often understand quite sloppy writing. I tried what I thought was a useful imitation of handwritten more or less one continuos stroke for 五. Wenlin didn't get it at all, but PlecoDict got it on several tries as the No. 1 suggestion.

[werdnerd]

The Google IME has been great for emulating the 五笔划 that I use on my Nokia when i don't know a character. Only one thing is missing however... the ability to type the '6' key (on the Nokia) for a '?' - Unknown stroke. As far as i can tell on Google IME, you need to type every single stroke in order. Am I missing something here? Does google allow for some sort of unknown - '?' stroke?

Edited January 19, 2009 at 11:34 AM by werdnerd