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QIM Pinyin Input for Mac


hanxue

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Wow, I stand corrected. :) Didn't even realize Sogou released a Mac version too! How does it compare to QIM? I know the Windows version beats it (at least from my own experience it's better at guessing your sentences etc. than QIM, though the latter is quite awesome too), but is the Mac one as functional?

EDIT: I just tried it and it seems to work seamlessly! It's quite awesome that you can mix English words with pinyin and it will, unlike QIM, recognize them - this is one of the features that I always liked about Sogou. I do remember in Windows version though, there were a lot more settings, for example, you could put a check to different fields of vocabs that the app will recognize or something? (Like History and stuff like that if I'm not mistaken?) Does the Mac version include all those goodies by default (since its Preferences pane is rather stripped-down)?

Also, I don't seem to find a way to switch to the traditional characters. Any ideas?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been using FIT for years and I recently upgraded when prompted, but the new version completely borked FIT. I was looking for an alternative and thought I'd check here...and sure enough, you guys came through! I'm quite keen on QIM now, though I do think I will give this Sogou IME a try too.

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Sogou for Mac is still in its very nascent state and lacks most of the features of its Windows counterpart. The only things it does better than QIM is the ability to separate English words from Chinese, and it is slightly smarter in sentence-guessing than the latter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh wow! I just bought a MacBook Air and was hoping that Sogou had released a Mac version, since although I have no problems with the default Mac pinyin input, the font size is much too small - and as I far as I know this can't be changed. Am downloading the Mac version of Sogou now, will see how it goes...! Thanks for the tip guys!

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  • 8 months later...

Is anyone else having problems with this input method crashing Chrome and sometimes the whole computer (i.e. need to reboot because little colored ball keeps spinning)? I already posted on some the Chrome support forums... just hoping that there is a quick solution someone knows about.... I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with QIM.

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I'm in the process of learning Wubi myself, but when I get frustrated sometimes I'll cheat by falling back on ITABC, which has always got the job done.

I also downloaded QIM forever ago and don't really use it. Is there a big difference between it and the native Mac IMEs? Am I missing out on something I'm unaware of?

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QIM works much better for me than the native Mac pinyin input method because it does a much better job of predicting the right characters when I enter a string of pinyin. It gets book titles, obscure phrases, medical terms...stuff that the native Mac IME completely misses. In my experience it's predictive ability is even better than the Sougou IME.

Another thing I like about QIM is that it makes entering pinyin with tone marks incredibly simple (just hit *tab* to scroll through the tones, then *return* to enter pinyin rather than characters).

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That's why I'm using it too -- much better prediction, like I can usually type a full sentence and not have to backtrack. The native Mac IME is a piece of junk.

I guess I can give the new Sogou one a spin...

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I'm in the process of learning Wubi myself, but when I get frustrated sometimes I'll cheat by falling back on ITABC, which has always got the job done.

Which Wubi IME are you using? The one I use has mixed Wubi/Pinyin, so if you can't determine the Wubi you can just type the pinyin and it will come up with the correct word.

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I'm using the default Wubi Input on Mac. I use the command + space buttons to switch between that and ITABC.

I tried downloading the IME you suggested; it doesn't seem to be working for me. It's installed, but when I select it, my computer slows down, and when typing none of the inputs register, I just get plain Latin script instead of characters.

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Are you sure it's not in English mode? If the IME is enabled you should be able to toggle between English and Chinese with a single press of the left-shift key.

I can't say I've ever noticed any slowdown because of it. I wonder if they've released a newer version than the one I'm running that slows things down.

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After checking the website again, it looks like I just need to upgrade. The website clearly says the program needs 10.6 or higher and I'm still running Leopard. :-?

I'll try it again after I buy a new OS. Thanks for letting me know about it though.

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