Japanese Keyboard Settings cause problems...

English Hardware
1

I’m sorry, I couldn’t find a specific language-related one so I hope this is the right place.

Anyway, I tried just about every variant of the Japanese Keyboard Settings, and the problem is that they work, but I can’t find the one that I actually know how to use. What I’m looking for is where I type for example ‘a’ and I get あ, if I type ‘k’ it’ll show up as k, but if I type an ‘o’ after that I get こ, if I hold shift and type ‘ya’ I’d get ヤ, like that, the way that it works (so far as I could tell, since I didn’t have to do anything to it to get it to do this) by default on Windows and I think possibly Mac, though I don’t know if it’s default or special settings on Macs because I only know they do that from school.

What I get when I use the Japanese Settings for typing currently is something where each key gets its own full character, like if I typed d that would be an entire character (I forgot which it would be) and every key has its own, instead of typing the English characters for the sound the character makes (which is what I need it to do)

Does anyone know if the way to input Japanese that I’m looking for exists in SUSE, and if so how do I enable that one, because it would be nice if when I have my own laptop I’d know how to enable that setting to actually use it for Japanese (since I have no foreseeable plans to learn the setting it seems to put me on for at least a good while) without having to switch to Windows or something.

2

Oh, another thing of the keyboard settings that I actually need is after typing a character or two (or as many as you’re typing) you’d be able to hit space and bring up a menu of possible things, hiragana, katakana, or possible kanji from those character combinations, that’s another thing I’d probably need in whatever settings might be available that work the way I have in mind, assuming there are such settings (one would assume they exist and the hard part is simply finding them, but I could be wrong)

(sorry I couldn’t just edit this in, when I tried to do that when it occurred to me to do so I got some weird message saying I can’t edit things after 10 minutes)

3

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:26:02 GMT
G Warrior107 <G_Warrior107@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Oh, another thing of the keyboard settings that I actually need is after
> typing a character or two (or as many as you’re typing) you’d be able to
> hit space and bring up a menu of possible things, hiragana, katakana, or
> possible kanji from those character combinations, that’s another thing
> I’d probably need in whatever settings might be available that work the
> way I have in mind, assuming there are such settings (one would assume
> they exist and the hard part is simply finding them, but I could be
> wrong)
>
> (sorry I couldn’t just edit this in, when I tried to do that when it
> occurred to me to do so I got some weird message saying I can’t edit
> things after 10 minutes)
>
>

Most of what you’re talking about is not keyboard centric, it’s the result of
a program on the system watching what you type and responding accordingly.

No, I don’t know anything more about Japanese keyboards, just that a keyboard
can’t do what you’re asking… while a keyboard and an associated program CAN.

Loni

–
L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com
Let’s see… ‘h’,‘e’,‘l’,‘l’,‘o’,‘w’,‘o’,‘e’,oops!

4

Okay, is that comment related to where I put the post, or something about what I said, I knew that it wasn’t just the actual physical keyboard if that’s what you’re saying (if it sounded like that, lemme know so I can try to figure out how to change what it sounds like) but really, it’d be nice to know where to get something that would let me type in Japanese the way I described, because it seemed that the Japanese Settings as they were available didn’t do that (or I missed something huge in trying to enable them, one of the two, I wouldn’t be amazed at either of them being the case)

5

Hello

What you are speaking about is not a matter of keyboard. The keyboard may be French or US or any other one even if qwerty keyboard is more efficient.
It is a question of software which translate you typping into katakana then into kanji. It called IME for imput method editor (or something like this). For linux you have to install SCIM (for smart Chinese Input) and SKIM (I think proper to KDE).
Normally the only thing you have to do is to go into YAST , to choose “Manage software” (I am French so I translate from “Installer et supprimer des logiciels”) then in the picklist “Filter” Choose Languages and after that select japanese. Yast will determine which software to install. Accept everything. After installation restart the machine. Normally SCIM will be active and you will see a small icon in the righ low corner of the screen which looks like a keyboard. Right click on it and chose IME then Anthy.
Good luck

6

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:16:01 GMT
G Warrior107 <G_Warrior107@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Okay, is that comment related to where I put the post, or something
> about what I said, I knew that it wasn’t just the actual physical
> keyboard if that’s what you’re saying (if it sounded like that, lemme
> know so I can try to figure out how to change what it sounds like) but
> really, it’d be nice to know where to get something that would let me
> type in Japanese the way I described, because it seemed that the
> Japanese Settings as they were available didn’t do that (or I missed
> something huge in trying to enable them, one of the two, I wouldn’t be
> amazed at either of them being the case)
>
>

{Chuckle} I don’t mind where you put the post… some others do…

From my experience with linux, enabling a keyboard for another language
really only tells the system that it might send keycodes which mean other
things than the ‘usual’. A program would need to be written to accept those
keystrokes and do something meaningful with them.

Take english spellchecking for example. The OS knows I have an english
keyboard attached. Ok. The program I’m using, some text editor, accepts
those keystrokes, and flags those sequences of keys which do not represent a
valid english word found in its dictionary at THAT time. Of course, adding
“words” to the dictionary cause it to change its behavior if that same
keystroke sequence is detected again.

This example is a bit contrived, but I think shows that I meant… you need
a japanese aware PROGRAM to allow you to do what you’re talking about… Most
computers don’t care in what order you press keys… the programs do. So you
need a program that will accept the keystrokes, and, based on the current
‘state’ of the input, cause various displays or popups to be activated.

Simply changing the keyboard won’t cause that to happen.

You might try searching Google for 'linux japanese input" (242K hits). Some
names of software I remember involving Japanese input methods are canna,
kinput, scim-anthy and wnn.

You might try searching for some Japan-based user groups who might be able to
help more since they’d have more direct need to find solutions.

Hope this helps

Loni

–
L R Nix
lornix@lornix.com
and I though dvorak sucked to learn…

7

Please take it easy.
I have been experiencing Japanese writing on computer for many years and I think I can help you, take this for sure.

Now it is just a matter of time and of understanding because I have not a perfect command of the English language. So don’t hesitate to come to me again if necessary.
What you want to do is to enter Japanese text into text applications using a keyboard with latin characters.
OK.

First of all, of course, you need a keyboard (AZERTY or QWERTY are both valid). I a first time, forget the choice of the keyboard (it’s a secondary concern).

Secondly, and that is the real matter, you need an IME (imput method engine or editor) that is a software which gets your typping and converts it into hiragana and katakana. Generally it is associated with a sort of dictionary which detects Japanese words and gives you the correct Kanji writing.
For Linux this software is SCIM (Smart Chinese Input). There are many dictionary associated but I strongly recommend you ANTHY (Windows generally uses ATOK).

Normally the Japanese Language Package provides you with everything you need.
The only problem you may have is how to make all this work.

After having installed the Japanse package and restarted, look at the task panel (I am not sure of the name of this panel in English). Normally you must have an icon which looks like a keyboard.
Enter an application (e.g. OpenOffice writer)
Left clik on the icon and chose the japanese. When covering the Japanese choice a pop up menu will open, chose Anthy (with an icon like a crown)。Left click and you will get the IME bar on top of the task panel with a label SCIM followed by The crown icon for Anthy and the hiragtana a and a kanji character?Click on the hiragana and chose hiragana in the pop up menu. It’s the normal choice when you want to enter Japanese text.
To enter the word NIHON in your text type n (you will see an n) then I (you will see ni にunderlined) Go on typing hon ほん (you will see nihon にほん underlined) . This moment is the most important. If you type return you will enter nihon in hiragana. If you type space you will be suggested various way of entering nihon including it in kanji. Each time you press the space bar will be proposed an other choice. When you agree press retun (enter). Thats’s all.

To go back to the non japanese way of entering text left click on the crown icon which has taken the place of the keyboard icon and chose English/keyboard or Direct/keyboard depending on the fact that you could have allowed different keyboard layouts.

At this time you can toggle the ２ways by pressing ctl-space. It is faster.

Now if you can allow various keyboard layout japanese, US, GB by the normal settings of KDE. If you do so you will have an other icon to switch the layout. But remember the layout has nothing to do with the IME.

8

I have prepared this page for you (and other). it is roughly the same with screen snapshots.
Linuxien japanophile

9

Well, what you just described basically sounds like what I need, I’ll try that out and see if it does the trick.

ありがとう ございます！ ＝）
(that’s thank you, and yeah, it works!)