MacPinyin -- Pinyinput for Mac

[peekay]

Mac users are missing Imron's excellent Pinyinput. While pīnyīn tone marks can be typed-in using U.S. Extended keyboard shortcuts, I thought having a proper pīnyīn input method would be a nice addition.

And so we have MacPinyin, version 1.00. For now please download it from here since the forum doesn't seem to accept .dmg files as attachments.

Due to limitations with OS X input method framework, MacPinyin isn't as flexible as Pinyinput, but still very easy to use. Hopefully you'll find it useful.

I just got inspired to write MacPinyin last night, and it probably has bugs, so any feedback greatly appreciated. MacPinyin is 100% free, under BSD-like licensing.

From the ReadMe file:

MacPinyin makes it easy to type pīnyīn with tone marks.

MacPinyin is an input method, and after installation it can be activated from System Preferences -> International -> Input Menu.

Once activated, simply type valid pīnyīn syllables, followed by a tone number, such as wo3 or ai4. Separate syllables with the key.

Notes and limitations:

- MacPinyin always outputs lowercase characters.

- Use v for ü. E.g., nv3 for nǚ.

- Neutral tone may be denoted as tone 5 (or simply left out.)

- Use instead of after punctuations or non-pinyin words

- Invalid pīnyīn gets discarded

There is no special support for apostrophes or érhuà, but they can be easily typed in.

Examples:

- hǎo (hao3)

- péngyou (peng2you

- hello (hello)

- xī'ān (xi1'an1)

- nàr (na4r)

System Requirements:

- MacPinyin requires OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later.

[akdn]

Thanks, this will come in handy from time to time, and definitely beats fiddling around with the other Mac methods of inputting pinyin. Thanks again.

[oriada2003]

This is great, Peekay. Many thanks!

[hanxue]

So basically the difference between this program and the pinyin input that OS-X provides is that with Pinyinput For Mac you can add the tone next to pinyin?

Oh, and another thing. Does anyone have any experiences with Pingguo Dictionary Pinyin 1.0, CEDICT 1.2 or QIM 1.6.5 1B022? Are they worth getting?

[peekay]

Unlike using the built-in "U.S. Extended" Alt-codes, MacPinyin automatically places tone marks above the correct "vowel", per proper pinyin rules.

E.g., for shǒu biǎo (wrist watch) the first mark is above the "o" but the second mark should be above the "a". Properly marking the correct tones with the Alt-codes is tedious and error-prone.

Another benefit is not having to use "U.S. Extended" if not needed for something else. Some programs don't work well with this keyboard, plus you lose the ability to easily type in symbols like π (pi).

MacPinyin also rejects bad pinyin so you can be confident of the output. An example would be wóng (a common Cantonese surname), which in pinyin should probably be wáng (王) or huáng (黄). Of course you actually can write wóng using MacPinyin if you really want to, like I just did.

[hanxue]

I've installed it. Pretty nice little input method for pinyin only, good job!

[roddy]

Have added a link to MacPinyin from Imron's Pinyinput, so all the Mac users don't go away empty handed.

[hanxue]

Btw peekay, since we're discussing pinyin inputs... When in typing simplified/traditional characters mode, is there a way to quickly insert this type of comma 、 ?

For the regular comma ( , ) there's no problem, but for (、) I always have to access "Show Punctuation" first and then select it.

[peekay]

I'm not sure what's the best way, but I made a shortcut using the User Dictionary.

Here's how to set it up for Simplified:

1. Switch to the Simplified input method (ITABC)
   
2. Press Alt-Shift-T to edit the User Dictionary (or select from menu)
   
3. In the "Input New Word" field, enter the dùnhào comma (、)
   
4. In the "Input Code", enter a short code (I use 'c' for comma)
   
5. Click Add
   

Now you can quickly type uc to input this comma. (Notice the "u" before whatever the short code you've chosen in step 4.)

You can similarly setup Traditional, except use option-u (instead of just "u") for the shortcut prefix.

[russmeier]

On my Mac using ITABC, I just use the key for the 、character.

I've never had to set up a special dictionary. It just works.

[peekay]

Genius!! Learn something new every day.

[hanxue]

Ahh, true!! I didn't even try that button, somehow forgot about it... Nice one!

[imron]

I just got around to installing 10.5 so have finally been able to give this a try. It's a nice improvement over what I used to use, which always came across as too finicky.

[hanxue]

Interestingly though, the 、only works in simplified input for me, but when I'm in traditional pinyin input, it won't work. Any idea why?

[russmeier]

你好jon，

I'm sorry you're having problems with your Mac Chinese input methods. I normally type only in simplified characters but I enabled traditional to try it on my Mac to see if I have the same problem. I don't. It works fine for me.

Here is the punctuation output for both simplified （ITABC) and traditional Chinese (pinyin input method).

我两、三天没吃饭了。(And I'm pretty hungry, I must say!)

我兩、三天沒吃飯了。

[hanxue]

Hmm, whenever I switch to trad. input and click the button, it will display the symbol/letter of the previous input language I had. So basically, the 、 will work only when my previous input language was US English...

[jonty]

hi peekay:

i loaded macpinyin and it all seemed to go well: the name appeared in the international menu. but when I transferred to Word it greyed out and wasn't accessible any more. I'm on Leopard v10.5.7 but with an old version of Word (version X: I think it dates from about 1993).

Any suggestions?

[peekay]

Unfortunately Word X is not a full "Unicode" application so it can't handle Unicode-based input methods like Pinyinput. (Word 2004 is the earliest version with full Unicode support.)

I don't have a copy of Word X to test, but it might be possible to first enter pinyin on TextEdit, then copy-paste to Word X if needed. Not an ideal solution to be sure but if it works that might still be useful when typing long pinyin phrases.

[hanxue]

I have an off-topic question: is there any such thing as the Zhong Wen add-on (when you move your mouse over Chinese characters, it will display their meaning) for SAFARI?

I love that Firefox add-on, but have decided recently to switch to Safari due to it being faster than FF... the only thing I really miss from FF at the moment is that Zhong Wen add-on...

[jonty]

Thanks, Peekay:

It works fine in TextEdit but won't paste into Word: still, I can do what I want to do in TextEdit for the moment.