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Complex Language Support for PDA's?
Jasin Natael asks: "What PDA's/Smartphones, etc. support complex languages in addition to more 'standard' languages? I'm a student of Japanese and am looking for a new PDA or smartphone that operates in English, but supports complex character sets. Input is a plus, but it's really needed for Contacts, Notes, Websites, and incoming E-Mail at a minimum. Would it be easy to add support to a Linux PDA (Zaurus) or Pocket PC for this? What about right-to-left languages, like Hebrew and Arabic?"
I use CJKOS on my Clie to give me Chinese characters, both for input as well as display in applications. It includes Japanese fonts but I have never used them. It works quite well for me.
I'm CERTAIN that a few months back I came across a Japanese package for the Palm. Maybe on Palm Freeware? That's the only Palm site I visit regularly so it could be there...
Palm OS is officially available in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portugese, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, and there are translation modules to support Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Hebrew, Greek, and more. Usually, a device is only set for one language at a time, but some of the overlay programs allow for an Asian language and Engligh together.
A few choice URLs:
http://www.penreader.com/PalmOS/PiLoc.html
Hebrew Localization
Chinese OS for Palm OS
Why are you even considering the world editions of the Zaurus? The Japanese models have full support for Japanese chars, plus nice dictionaries. But these models are sold only inside Japan (or through gray market), the world models don't have equivalent features.
Arabic is available here: http://www.arabicpalm.com/ and Hebrew here: http://www.penticon.com/.
I would be interested to find out if any work has been done to get either of these languages workin on the Zaurus.
Simputer from India has support for the complex Indic languages.
However, for Japanese and Arabic (with bidi support), I guess the best option would be to run gtk2 - whose pango text layout engine supports complex scripts.
I don't know what PDA has gtk2 based apps, you'll have to find out for yourself.
I don't see any reason why pda's or smartphones won't have this kind of language support.
Hm, after a quick search on the palm os site I found this palm os page
A quote:
I suppose it's not that hard to find plugins for other languages.
"chinese language support palm pilot" yields a power point presentation that compares both chinese and japanese plug ins.
"japanese language PDA" the first entry is a press release on a whole japanese language system for symbian os.
Google = not hard.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
The Danger Hiptop / T-Mobile Sidekick looks like it will have Japanese IME support, at least as a developer tool.
Neopad Nihongo Input Romazi
I haven't tried either of the above, though...
Also, the program Dokusha, while also being a good English-Japanese dictionary, comes with some Japanese fonts.
I bought my PI-6500 6 years ago. It has handwriting recognition, wa-ei, ei-wa, kanji and kokugo dictionaries built-in. The handwriting recognition comes in handy when you want to look-up a kanji you don't know. It is also good practice for handwriting skills. The latest zaurus-es have these, but you used ones are really cheap in akihabara (50 bucks or less). You also might be interested in http://www.jisyo.org if you are serious about japanese study.
Don't forget that the Japanese models of the Zaurus also have handwriting input for English characters, not just kanji. I've never seen anything as accurate as the kanji recognition in my Zaurus, and I have an ancient model (PI-6600). Beginners might be afraid of the kanji input because you have to enter in correct stroke order. And they're right, the Zaurus is not for beginners, if only because there are no English menus. But for intermediate and advanced students, they're great. You get to a point where you can correctly draw almost any kanji you see, even unfamiliar ones, and that makes it incredibly rapid and easy to use.
This is the highest-modded flamebait, so: the point is that I *have* looked around. The post is "Ask Slashdot" to get some anecdotal responses, or actual experiences back. I'm buying a PDA specifically for its complex language support, gray-market imports aren't an option, and I (and conceivably other /. readers) would like to hear about what works for other people.
For example, a few things I've found:
J-OS works on old Palms, but not anything with enough memory to be useful as a dictionary/learning tool. CJKOS doesn't support High-Res of any type and won't be updated for OS5. So much for a long-term solution. The things I've tried for Palm, while useful, are largely OLD freeware projects that crash a lot on the newer revisions of the OS.
Windows CE machines, while they do support unicode characters natively, need pagecode translation to display more common encodings (I have no experience to draw on... Is this a problem?), and have an abysmal educational software selection.
Point is: I haven't got the PDA/Smartphone to play with, and would like to hear about peoples' experiences fiddling with the language support of their gadgets before dropping a few hundred bucks on something that may not even work very well at all. I'd also be interested to find out which solutions feel like dirty little hacks, and which are virtually indistinguishable from OS-native support...
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
Then set the locale to English and modify the fonts as described at this site . This gives you English Menues and English and Japanese input and gets rid of any mojibake in the Japanese applications. The Zaurus has the same handwriting recognition as all its predecessors which is the best I have ever seen for Kana, Kanji and various alphabets all at the same time.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
www.sofmap.co.jp sells clie and an older sharp zaurus (SL-B500, cheaper and also linux, with a chicklet keyboard). I have some older clies which I dislike due to their being entirely too slow for input using normal input methods. The newer clies are nice-looking too, and at least for the older ones there are apparently ways to localize them. I'd stick with linux and as much RAM as you can get though.. the new zaurus would be perfect with a little faster cpu and an extra hundred megabytes or so of ram. Undoubtedly you can run emacs with any language you like on it.
I don't quite get your question, really. The japanese had PDAs before we did, and they've *allways* had better ones. Especially due to their set of glyphs!
They've also got wristwatch computers and use them in ways useful. Mostly 'cause you get a lot more info on that tiny screen with Kanji and Chinese Symbols than with latin lettering. You can get an entire novel on to something like 100 pages that way.
Go figure.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Here is an excerpt from the Discussion over at brighthand on this, I followed it and had no problems with installing japanese support on a Dell Axim, Ipaq 3650, and Ipaq 5450
Here is the page
"It seems that some of you want to see and Input Japanese on their US/EUR PPC
here you are all you need and a Step by step process Enjoy!
Fisrt of all you don't need to flash the rom of your PPC, I was obliged to do that on my Japanese Ipaq just simply coz I was fed up to not be able to run some software properly and to wait for Rom Update.
What you need is very simple:
-The Japanese FONT MSGothic From a Japanese PPC
-A file called wince.nls from a Japanese PPC
-2 reg keys
-TascalRegedit soft in order to import those key.
Please not that you will only be able to read Japanese not Input Japanese
By reading I mean that you can even see the Kanji of a Japanese soft installed on a US/EUR PPC and of course surf the web in Japanese.
By not be able to imput Japanese I mean that you can no write in Japanese for that you need to buy a Japanese Input software and as well import some Key in the registry (can give you more details if you Need)
Finally I am not the guy who created this and all the Info are comming form Pocketgames Japan (Thanks Koji !)
And It has been working perfectly on Compaq/HP (3630 1910 3970 5450) or O2 devices but almost destroyed a Casio E-200 (Hard reset Manipulation was even not successful, was obliged to put away both backup battery and main battery in order to be able to use again the PDA)
so you can Dl the files there:
The reg keys (2)
Reg Key
The Font (2.2Mo zipped and 4Mo unzipped)
Japanese Font
The WinCe.nls
Wince.nls
Thru Active Sync overwrite the wince.nls file which is in your Windows folder, put there as well the Font Don't put neither the wince.nls file nor the font in any other place, folder subfolder than the WINDOWS folder.
Now form TascalRegedit Install the 2 Regkey, soft reset Et voila !!!
to make sure go into my regional settings and you should see that:
Now you can read japanese, so what about inputing Japanese?
This is not the most perfect input methode but this Methode is FREE !
Now you just have to download this soft called POBox, and you will have a New Keyborad available in your PPC. Also in the Zip file you will find a folder called Dic, just put this folder in the C: root of your PPC et voila ! it will works like a charm
(There are some bugs, I mean that the imput panel overlap the dictionary but if you know your Knaji you will recognized them easily)
14/03/03 Update on the Overlaping Problem
Thank you very much for Koji of the Famous and extremly well known Pocketgames JAPAN and Have a look to the link above !
He got the answer of the overlaping problem when using the Soft ComPOBox, you need in the registry to change one single value and you will fix the PB. here you are
in
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControlPanelSip]
You have
MenuBarHight 0000001a
So now change it to
00000000
Enjoy"
moo.