Asian Text Input
By Roy Ratcliffe, May 13, 2010
You have a Chinese Simplified or Traditional, Japanese or Korean Watchtower Library and want to run it on your Mac. Watchtower Library for Mac lets you install and run the library. Good. But it does not let you enter Asian text in the search box. Not good!
This is an issue I have been working on for some time. I’m imagining that there are many such users. After all, there are far more Mandarin speakers say compared to English speakers; though perhaps not of those in the truth. I remember Harry Cotton’s accelerated language learning classes: only about 300 million English speakers, compared to billions of Mandarin speakers. English is a minority language, even if you count those speaking English as a second language.
So Asian input has been at the top of my to-do list for quite a while. Sorry for lack of progress. But I am getting somewhere, although I have not had a lot of time for developing it.
Comments (16)
What a great thing that you think about Asian Christians!
I am Japanese JW.
I am looking foward for developing complete!
Thank you!
Dear VMAXON, Sorry for the delay. I keep chipping away at it. I am getting closer.
In the meantime, one work around for those that can get by in English is look up the result in English… then hit the “Synchronize” button.　Another solution is to write some Japanese text in a Sticky and copy it to the clipboard… then in the Search area, press control+V. It’s a bit of a work around but it appears to work!
Good suggestions. Thanks Gary. Yes, those are effective work arounds. I’m hoping to make it easier though.
I have tried to install the simplified chinese watchtower and it installs correctly but the font seems to be a problem. It only shows boxes where text should be. What am I doing wrong.
Dear Ryan,
Please follow the guidelines at http://developer.royratcliffe.me.uk/projects/wtlib4mac/wiki/Chinese-Japanese-Korean_font_mapping. Hopefully that will help you.
Regards, Roy
Dear Friends,
I am trying to install the chinese software using the instruction. I see the menu in Chinese, but the content it still show boxes. I have changed the ms shell dlg into Arial Unicode MS, and ms shell dlg2 also, but I still cannot see the content in chinese characters.
Thanks for your fine job.
Dear Jesse, Sounds like you need to set the Browser Text font as well. Look under Library>Properties (F2 is the shortcut). Change it to some other font supporting Hanzi.
Thanks a lot!
I have some problem with search in Korean.
I’m very happy to hear that this issue is at the top of your to-dos.
Thanks again.
My wife wants to use WT Library both in Japanese and English on her MacBook. Is it possible to install multiple languages on one single machine, and if so, how can this happen.
Thank you!
Dear Ethan, Just pop the Japanese disc in and install just like the English version. Then under Watchtower Library>Applications you will see both versions.
Hello,
I’m trying to install a Korean WTL, but the characters appear broken. The Korean font on the left frame for browsing looks good, but the korean in middle frame comes out as squares. How do I resolve this issue?
Thank you.
Dear Peter, Please see Roy’s blog solution to this problem here
Hi Brothers, I can’t open the following link
http://developer.royratcliffe.me.uk/projects/wtlib4mac/wiki/Chinese-Japanese-Korean_font_mapping.I need to see the info in it cause I have the same problem in Arabic.
Thanks for the good work
Hi. I’ve successfully installed the English WTL and the Chinese WTL, however, even though I choose simplified Chinese character version from the drop-down, the program is only loading the traditional Chinese characters.
What can I do to get the simplified?
Thanks for your hard work!!
hi, i install the wtlib2011 for chinese simplified, during installation, some dropdown menu appear boxy for chinese character. after complete the installation successfully, opened up the wtlib, everything is boxy, instead of showing proper chinese character. anything i miss out? any thoughts?