Handwriting Input Update?

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

Saw the newsletter today, got me wondering:
Will there be an update to handwriting input?

Extra-rare hasn’t been cutting it for me for a while.

It seems like ext. B characters are not even supported with handwriting input.

Will there be an update to include CJK ext characters for handwriting?

 

[mikelove]

Not part of our immediate plans, no. To be honest I don't even know if there are any commercial handwriting input systems out there that support Ext-B - most of those characters are quite obscure, so you'd end up with a ton of false positives + relatively few characters that you're likely to actually encounter.

We are aiming to upgrade our radical search feature in one of the updates following 4.0 to be more of a component search feature and to support Ext-B/C/D/E/F, so for rare / archaic characters that will probably be a better bet.

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

Will this bring up SVG results as well? I believe there are a few in GF, HDC, etc. Although, they may have already been encoded, by now.

Would said "component search feature" work with multiple components? Two components, really, would be enough in most instances.

Also, is font support coming for Ext F.?

 

[mikelove]

Possibly, we have to check all of those against the new extensions and come up with our own code points for whatever's left.

Would work with multiple components, yes (that's pretty much the point

And yes, we're just waiting for the HanaMin font we use to add Extension F.

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

Awesome.

If it were possible to type something like "(special character)口山" into the text bar and get the result (ext. b doesn't display here) ⿰口山 - that would be pretty neat. (just putting in my vote for 'requested feature').

 

[Bvo]

Saw the newsletter today

Sorry, is there a subscription for newsletters from Pleco team?

 

[mikelove]

Yep: https://www.pleco.com/mailing-list/

 

[ACardiganAndAFrown]

And yes, we're just waiting for the HanaMin font we use to add Extension F.

Koichi Kamichi just got back to me, said it’s coming out Sep. 4th.

 

[mikelove]

Cool, should just be a matter of updating the data files when it's ready, but we're planning a minor update for mid-to-late September for minimal iPhone 8 compatibility and could probably get any needed code updates into that.