Does any one know with pinyin input methods is it possible to turn to the next “selection” of characters without using the mouse click?
I use both
Google's Pinyin Method and
NJStar's Pinyin Input editors. Both are equally easy to use. Google's has a slightly better predictive input than NJStar in my opinion. I think NJStar calls its own "predictive input" 联想。But somehow Google seems to be able to automatically select the right combination of words or characters faster than NJStar. Occasionally I am even surprised the required character in NJStar does not show up even when you have typed the pinyin correctly and repeatedly. Happens for example with this character 角 when you type: "jue"。(This may be because this character has two different pinyin. But if so or for any other reasons, NJStar should have corrected for this by now.) So for most inputs especially normal SMS messages, speech, vernacular prose(白话文) Google does the job faster. I never turn on the "continuous 联想” option, which is an option within NJStar because I don't really understand what it means or what is the subtle difference between this and the normal 联想 only.
I think my copy of NJStar(legal) is probably still slightly buggy. Anyway, if the first character of a combination fails to show up, and it is not there after you use the mouse to "turn" through the second and third selection sets - wasting a lot and a lot of time, then I assume something is wrong or I have typed the wrong pinyin spelling. Anyway I used "continuous 联想” a few times but it seems to be the same as having 联想 by itself as far as I am concerned! If the character you want does not show up, it will not show up whichever type of 联想you use. The manual is also not too clear on what is suppose to happen. (Are You listening NJStar?)
Availability of a dictionary is another thing altogether. This should hardly be used to justify an input method. I think input methods should be judged solely on
ease of use, accuracy, speed, and not whether a dictionary can provide explanations to the character you've typed.
Since Google Pinyin Input Method only produces Unicode characters, it is not possible to use it to type characters into NJStar word processor itself. Apart from this defect, you can Google's Input Method to input Chinese just about anywhere, e.g. emails, browsers, Notepad, MS Word etc... Installation is also problem free on any language version of Windows.Very easy to assign a special key combination e.g.. Ctrl+Shift + 3 to "engage" or "exit" the input method. If you are using certain applications e.g.MSWord which automatically provide double-byte spacing it is probably convenient to set the the startup configuration as 半角.
Finally getting back to my original question: In Google Pinyin Input "Settings" panel I found a place where you can supposedly assign the Ctrl keys or the Shift keys to enable you to page up or down the next set of possible character selections. But strangely I cannot find any help on this from the Goggle help pages!! This way your hand does not have to leave the keyboard and have to grab the mouse to click the arrow paging buttons. But somehow this assignment of keys in Google does not seem to produce the desired end result.
I am surprised NJStar which has had a pinyin input method for years, has not thought of assigning a special key for "paging" through the possible character selections. The other thing useful about Google's input method is that you can extend the "input bar" so that each selections of possible characters can be 5 or 8 or as long as you want!
There is only one drawback with pinyin input methods: You can't possibly find the character if you don't know how to sound it. In Google Pinyin input method, you can switch to a "Strokes" input method by adding the letter 'u.'
http://tools.google.com/pinyin/
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