Welcome to HanWJ World! Author Jiang, Yi, 2003www.hanwj.com
III. HanWJ PinYin and XingMa
In PinYin Input Mode, you type in the pinyin of character or word, HanWJ will prompt you with possible character or word candidates, then you select one from the prompts using number key or a spacebar.
To select the first choice, use spacebar or number key "1"; to select the second choice, use number key "2", and so on. If there are n choices, then all number key greater or equal n will select the n-th.
You can also change setting in Input Options dialog, so that number "1" and "2" will all select the second choice; this is because selecting the first choice is already very convenient by using the spacebar and using both key "1" and "2" to select the second choice will increase fault-tolerance since it's easy to type the wrong number key. The 1st and 2nd choices are the most used ones.
When choices are greater than 10, the rest will not be showed on the first page of choices. You can use ">" and "<" to navigate to next and previous pages of choices.
In PinYin mode,it is usually faster to input in unit of word than in unit of character. It is best to break sentences into pieces each having 2-4 characters.
To input word, type in the pinyin of each character continuously; or type in the first letter of each character. For word having more than 6 character, you only need to type in first letters of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and the last character.
Wildcard can be used to substitue one or more pinyin letters except when the word only have 2-3 characters and you are inputing it by using the first letters.
One difference between normal pinyin input and HanWJ pinyin input is:
(1) If you like, you can use the leftmost column of keys as tone keys, to specify the tone of the character
(or the last character of word), thus narrowing down the possible choices prompted.
Key " ` " represents tone-1, Tab key represents tone-2, CapsLock key represents tone-3, Left-Shift key for tone-4, and the Right-Shift key represents tone-5.
If a wrong tone key was input, just input the right one again. It will overwrite the previous one.
Tone 1-5 are written as the shapes of "-/v\.".
For example,to input "李", type in "li" and CapsLock key.On the pinyin prompt line, you see the tone-3 as a trailing blue check mark:
Note, tone key is used only for the last character of word. You can not use tone for every character in a word.In another word, tone key can only appear after all pinyin letters.
i.e., in HanWJ ShuangPin mode, you can still use first-letter mothed to input word as long as you preceed your input with a Left-Alt(displayed as a underscore).
Since ShuangPin uses ";" key, that key's role to represent Chinese Stroke is transfered "/" key.
Little tip: If using original character ordering, Chinese numbers can be input by using first letter of that Chinese number's character's pinyin followed by the corresponding number key. e.g.,"八" can be input as "b8","四" as "s4",etc.
In PinYin mode, each of the 26 letter keys is assigned a commonly-used character for fast input by typing that letter followed by spacebar.It'll be helpful to go to "Help/Guide" menu and select "Print Keymap".
HanWJ XingMa is suitable for fast Chinese input, but need more learning efforts than PinYin. For most people, PinYin is good enough.
You can also use PinYin first, but in Input Options dialog, select "Distribute 1 key pinyin character as XingMa" option. This will caused all the character assignments of keys to comply with XingMa's radical distribution.This way, when you use PinYin, you'll gradually become familiar with the distribution of XingMa radicals, thus making learning XingMa at a later time easier.
To learn XingMa, it is most helpful to print out the Radical Keymap, and keep it handy.
HanWJ XingMa scheme has used up almost every key on the keyboard. Specifically, it uses TAB key,CapsLock key, and left and right Shift keys; in prompt line and documentation,they are displayed as "!","@","#",and "$", respectively.But in saying,they are called "习","木","失",and "身" key, respectively.
On prompt line, the letters on input sequence are displayed as capital letters. But HanWJ XingMa does not differentiate lowercase or uppercase letters when treating input letters.
The following are XingMa examples.
(Note:as said above, in following examples, letters are displayed as capital letters, but when you type, don't hold down shift key)
To input in unit of character:
"山水画" can be input as: "U",spacebar,CapsLock key,"S" key twice,"1GU",spacebar.
"北京城" can be input as: Tab key,"7" key,spacebar,"QOS",spacebar,"V","[" key.
"视窗" can be input as: "KNC",spacebar,"6JGR",spacebar.
To input as word:
"山水画" can be input as "U@1GU".
"长江三角洲" can be input as "K13?RN?",where "?" is wildcard key, i.e., the Left-Alt key.
The rule for word input is:
(1) Word containing 2-3 characters: type in full radicals for each character; if the number of radicals is less than 4, use the first letter of the last character's pinyin to make up.
Word having 4 or more characters: Method of (1) or just type in the first letter of each character's pinyin; for word having 7 or more characters can just use the first letter of pinyin for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and last character.
When a word is not found in the prompt, you can type
HanWJ analysea the letters you typed, find the character or sub-word matching the a prefix of letter sequence and prompt you with possible choices.
Before the vertical divider bar, all letters are said to be in a Match-Window. Within the Match-Window, you can do whatever you do in normal pinyin input,e.g., edit the pinyin letters using left/right arrow keys and backspace/delete keys, or add in tone key.
You choose a choice; then HanWJ will do the same thing for the rest of letter sequence, and so on; until the target word is found and entered(new word, when entered, will be added to WordBase automatically, unless you press and release the Ctrl key before you enter new word).
You can move the divider bar forward or backward using Left-Alt,"/" key, and PageUp/PageDown keys. Pressing "\" key will move divider bar one position left.