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Finally, the Pinyin tool you've all been waiting for.
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imron -

Let's face it, typing pīnyīn with tone marks is a real pain. Sure there are Word macros, and
webpages and certain software programs that you can use to type them, but there's not exactly one
seamless or consistent method to do it. Also, sometimes you're not using Word, sometimes you're
not connected to the internet, and sometimes you don't want to have to boot up another program and
copy and paste.

What would be really nice is an IME that instead of outputting Chinese characters, would output
pīnyīn with tone marks. Seeing as I've had a bit of spare time recently, I thought I'd put it to
good use and develop such an IME. The result is Pinyinput.

Once installed, it works just like a regular Chinese IME. Whenever you want to type some pīnyīn
you just switch on the IME and start typing. It works at the system level, and so it will allow
you to type pīnyīn with tones in any Windows program, just as easily as you would type Chinese
(in fact even easier, because you don't need to select the correct character.

Pinyinput has two main modes of operation. The first mode is "checked" mode, which only accepts
(mostly) valid pīnyīn (mostly valid in that it only checks for correct combinations of initials
and finals, and not valid/invalid combinations of tones). When typing, if you place a number at
the end of a pīnyīn syllable then Pinyinput will automatically convert the correct vowel in the
syllable so that it has the appropriate tone e.g. Typing Ni3hao3 will produce the output Nǐhǎo.
It knows where the tones are supposed to go so you'll never need to worry about whether the tone
was supposed to go over the a or the o, or whatever. It also makes sure you put the apostrophe in
the correct place, so the only letters that can follow an apostrophe are a, o and e (píngān and
píng'ān are acceptable, pín'gān is not). "Checked" mode also optionally supports "érhuà" so
things like pingr2 will be converted to píngr. The "érhuà" support is pretty simplistic, and it
will allow any valid pīnyīn syllable which is followed by an r (even though such syllables might
not exist in valid pinyin).

The second mode is "unchecked" mode, and in this mode you can type whatever you like, and when you
type the numbers 1-4, Pinyinput will put the corresponding tone mark over the preceding letter. By
using Unicode's combining diacritic marks, it even supports tone marks over consonants, s̄ò
ȳǒù c̀áň w̌řītě āll s̀ōřts̄ ōf čŕāžy̌ s̄tǔff lǐǩě thǐs

Pinyinput outputs Unicode, and the user can optionally decide whether they want to use combining
diacritic marks or individual characters (consonants will always use the combining diacriticals).
For users who don't know the difference, individual characters are probably the best way to go, as
not all programs handle combining diacriticals correctly.

Another feature is that Pinyinput can support multiple different keyboard layouts. So if you use
the Dvorak, the French or some other non-qwerty layout you can still type pīnyīn using the
keyboard layout that you are familiar with. Pinyinput detects what other keyboard layouts you have
installed, and allows you to choose which layout you prefer in its configuration dialog. Also,
regardless of the layout used, the letter v of that layout is always automatically converted to ü.

I'm releasing the program free of charge, but if you find it useful, I won't stop you from making
donations :-)

Pinyinput should still be considered beta-software, and although it's reasonably stable, it most
likely still contains a few bugs (some of which have now been fixed over the course of the last
few months). Anyway, it comes with no warranty of any sort and while it shouldn't cause any
problems on your computer, if your hard-drive dies after installing this, it wasn't my fault :-)

It only works on WinNT/2000/XP (and apparently Vista also), so everyone else is out of luck for
the time being. I might get around to writing a Linux or Mac version if there's enough interest,
but Win9X users (if you still exist) will just have to put up with the other ways of typing pinyin.

Once installation is completed, you activate it the same way you would any other Chinese input
method. So, go to the language toolbar and select Chinese. Then click on the second icon which
will bring up a list of all input methods you have installed for Chinese. One of them will be
Pinyinput. Once you've selected this, then Pinyinput will be used for all input in that
application, and depending on the application, you will either get a little pop-up box, or the
text will appear inline as you type.

You can also use the standard keyboard shortcuts to activate it, so Alt-Shift will cycle through
the languages available on the language toolbar (English, Chinese etc), and then once you're on
Chinese you can use Ctrl-Shift to cycle through the different Chinese input methods available (MS
Pinyin, Wubi, Pinyinput etc).

I've attached a couple of images below so you can see what I mean.

Edit: Updated installer to fix a small problem.

Edit 2006/11/9: Updated installer to output more accurate error messages (with thanks to atitarev
for testing/debugging), and fixed random bug with checked input.

Edit 2006/12/26: Fixed bug with OpenOffice and keyboard repeat codes.

Edit 2007/5/26: Fixed bug with function keys not working.

Edit 2007/6/01: Fixed bug with ü when typing in checked mode.

Download link for non-members.

ADMIN NOTE: ATTENTION VISITORS FROM WIKIPEDIA AND ELSEWHERE!
Don't just download the fantastic Pinyinput and disappear! Download it and then register on here
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Pravit -

Cool stuff! I noticed a few things:

1. The installation program hung and bringing up task manager revealed that it was taking up 99%
of system resources. After killing it and running it again, though, it said that Pinyinput was
already installed(which it was).

2. Not a problem, but for anyone who has no experience with other IMEs like me, you can access
Pinyinput by clicking on the MSPY icon in your language bar and selecting it from the list.

3. I noticed that in unchecked input, if you delete a letter with a tone mark over it, the tone
mark will somehow remain "floating" and attach itself to other letters you type underneath it. Not
sure exactly how to reproduce it.

Great tool though and very useful! Thanks for releasing this free!










imron -

It's strange that the installer would hang. There are no loops in the code, so I can't imagine
what's causing it. It pretty much just copies the file, sets a few registry settings and exits.
What version of Windows are you running?

Also, regarding the floating tones, what program were you typing in? If you do manage to figure
out a way to reproduce it let me know.










imron -

Well, I just tested it out on a couple of other machines, the first one had no problem, but the
second one produced the same hang in the installer. It seemed to be being caused because I was
loading and activating the IME in the installer, and activating it there seemed to cause problems.
So now it doesn't do that, and it shouldn't hang - at least it no longer hangs on the other
machine I tested it on. If you wouldn't mind downloading it again and trying to see if it fixed
the problem, it'd be much appreciated.










lalibela -

Hi there!!
This sounds so great!!! i´m afraid i´m a complete beginner with computer´s stuff (although
i´ve been using it for 15 years now) and don´t know how to work with it. It said "installation
completed" but I can´t make it work!! Could you please explain all the steps I have to follow in
a very basic way?
Thanks for your help guys,
Lalibela










imron -

-moved this post and pictures to the first post-










imron -

One other thing, if you can't see the second icon displayed on the language bar, you can right
click on the first icon, and one of the options should be something like "Adjust language bar
position". This will make sure that all icons on the language bar are fully displayed.










UnbelieverOz -

First post - thanks for that tool, very handy. It installed fine for me (XP Home) and works fine
with the little bit of playing I've done so far. I'm just getting back into learning Chinese and
this will help a lot making up my own notes.

Cheers!










atitarev -

Hi Imron,

I tried to install your Pinyin Input on my work computer (XP Pro) and got a message - "You need
admininstrator priviliges to install Pinyininput". I know I do on that PC - can change registry
and can install other IME's, etc. Do you think, you can address this issue?

Thanks for your wonderful work,
Regards,
Anatoli










imron -

There are two things Pinyinput requires administrator privileges for. 1) write access to the
windows system folder (usually c:\windows\system32), and 2) write access to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
registry subkeys (which usually have a different level of access to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER subkeys).

If you are certain you have access to these things, then you can try manually installing it using
the files I've attached to this post. There are 2 files in the zip, one is pinyinput.ime which is
the actual IME, and the other is an installer that will copy the file to the system folder and
also update the registry so that pinyinput will appear in the text services and input methods
dialog box.

To use them, unzip the files to a temporary directory, and run "installer.exe". It's best if you
run this from the command line, so you can see the output (this will let you know if there were
any errors). The installer doesn't check for administrator privileges and just assumes it can copy
and setup everything. It also doesn't setup the uninstaller, so if you want to uninstall
Pinyinput, you will have to delete the ime file and remove the relevant registry entries manually.
Anyway, if everything was ok, you should see something like this:

-------------- Installing Pinyinput ---------------
Copying pinyinput.ime to c:\windows\system32\pinyinput.ime...OK
Installing Pinyinput...OK

---------------------- Done -----------------------

(if there were any problems, it will say Error instead of OK).

Once that's done, you now need to set Pinyinput as one of the available Input Methods, so pull up
the text services dialog box (the easiest way is to right-click on the language bar and choose
settings).

In this dialog box, click add, and then choose Chinese (PRC) for the input language. Pinyinput
should now be one of the choices displayed in the keyboard layout/input method combo box. Select
it, and click ok, and Pinyinput should now be available for use in the language bar.

Let me know if you can install it using this method.

Edit:Removed zip file, as it contained an older version of pinyinput, without any of the recent
bug-fixes.












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