Multilingual and Asian input methods

Hi, Jeff and all Ubuntu developers,

I can guarantee that SCIM is *the* best choice and should be the base standard
Input Method Engine (IME) for Ubuntu.  SCIM is written in modern C++ with a very
nice API and is very stable.  Whatever segfault whoever found must have been an
anomoly.  The latest version of SCIM has at least 13 input methods for Traditional
Chinese, and 6 methods for simplified Chinese --including the very, very, very easy-to-use
"Smart Pinyin" method which I believe is what almost everyone (in Mainland) uses now because it
really is so easy.  In fact, with the Smart Pinyin method, I can now type Chinese
almost as fast as English.  Another fairly good method for simplified Chinese is
the Ziranma method, also included.  

Another *really* *really* useful feature of the more recent versions of
SCIM is that I can now select an IM that I am comfortable with --such as SmartPinYin--
to type *either* *simplified* *or* *traditional* Chinese.  This is a super-convenience
for me, and I am sure it is very convenient for native Chinese speakers too.  With the
huge increase in global internet communication, I believe it is now quite common for
mainland Chinese to need to have the ability to also type traditional characters when
communicating with people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas.  Not having to learn a new
input method just for traditional Chinese is a big help.  (Of course there are Perl modules
to convert simplified <--> traditional which are key to quickly churning out Chinese
web pages in both scripts (see HanConvert), but for daily email communications, reports,
forms, etc., having the ability to switch back-and-forth between simplified and traditional
with just a mouse click in SCIM is a godsend).

For Japanese, SCIM comes with at least 3 IMs, for Korean at least 9.  In addition to these,
there are native SCIM IMs for Arabic, Amharic, Russian Yawerty.  When used with m17n, the
number of IMs for non-CJK scripts jumps exponentially : I think the goal of m17n is to have
IMs for every script encoded in Unicode.  SCIM can also use UIM input methods and has
GTK, KDE, and vanilla X11 front-ends which sit in the tray.

Hopefully this is enough advertising to convince you to make SCIM the default IME. 
If there are other specific questions regarding SCIM, just email me. 

-- Ed Trager
   Kellogg Eye Center
   http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu


On Friday 2005.10.21 20:43:34 +0200, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Cam">
> 
> > Anyway, if there is any need to coordinate w/ the Ubuntu-TW people are
> > Debian's people are whatever i'm usually hanging out in those irc channels
> > so maybe i can help out?
> 
> Thanks for the insights - yes, helping us coordinate and communicate with
> Ubuntu-TW to make sure Ubuntu ROCKS OUT OF THE BOX for them would be great.
> :-)
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> -- 
> linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/
>  
>              make: *** No rule to make target `whoopee'.  Stop.
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