============================ CHINESE OS for PalmPilot 1.1 ============================ 1. Introduction 2. Files in the archive 3. Installation 4. Ordering 5. Known Bugs 6. Future Plan 6. History 7. FAQ 8. Contact 1. Introduction --------------- Welcome to Chinese OS for PalmPilot. Now you can read/write chinese in PalmPilot. The program supports changjei, easy cantonese and pinyin input method. For GB version, it only support pinyin input method. The font size is 12x12 only in order to fit the field height of PalmPilot and it should be readable. I have tested the OS while using Datebook, address book, todo, memopad and Doc. Now you can make some chinese DOC!!! Someone has requested for larger font size, but it will reduce the compatibility with english applications. If you found the current font size unreadable, please let me know. Notice that the database size will be increased by about 60% for larger font. 2. Files in the archive ----------------------- Before you install Chinese OS, you should decide which version you should use, there are three different version of Chinese OS: 1. GB(simplified) version 2. BIG5(traditional) light version (about 5000 fonts) 3. BIG5(traditional) full version (about 13000 fonts) GB and BIG5 are different encoding methods used to represent chinese character. GB is used mostly in PRC and BIG5 are used in Hongkong and Taiwan. You should choose the program with the same encoding method as your desktop computer. You can also choose larger BIG-5 font set if you have enough memory. Depends on the version of Chinese OS you downloaded, you will get the following files where '?' is: 'g' for GB(simplified) version 's' for BIG5(traditional) light version 'l' for BIG5(traditional) full version chos1?.prc main program (including chinese input method) for OS 1.0 chos2?.prc main program (including chinese input method) for OS 2.0 cfont?.pdb 12x12 Chinese Fonts cjtable?.pdb Changjei input table (no need to install if you don't want changjei or easy input chinese) pytable?.pdb Pinyin input table (no need to install if you don't want pinyin input method) cttable?.pdb Cantonese input table (no need to install if you don't want cantonese input method) readme.txt this file 3. Installation --------------- HotSync chos??.prc and cfont?.pdb to you PalmPilot. If you want to have changjei or easy input method, also install cjtable?.pdb. If you want to have pinyin input method, install pytable?.pdb. If you already have an older version of Chinese OS for PalmPilot on your pilot, you can skip the installation of *.pdb since the databases are seldom changed. Once you have installed the programs, click the 'Chinese OS' icon. Check 'Enable Chinese OS' to enable the OS. Check 'Enable Chinese Keyboard' if you want to have chinese input. Click 'Appl' icon to get back to Launcher, now you can view chinese in any application. I have tested it in Address Book, Memo and Doc. If you want to enter chinese, invoke the Chinese Keyboard Dialog in the same way you invoke the original Keyboard Dialog, that is, Command-K, clicking the lower corner of Graffiti area or using menu. The interface is trivial and you should know how to use if you have used old Keyboard Dialog and changjei input method. You can also invoke the keyboard once more to get back to the original english keyboard. Please disable all functions of Chinese OS (uncheck it) before you uninstall or reinstall Chinese OS. IMPORTANT -- From version 0.92, the font database will be locked forever in order to improve speed. If you want to uninstall or reinstall the cfont.pdb database, you must SOFT RESET the pilot to unlock the database. You don't need to reset the pilot if you only want to reinstall chos?.prc or the input method databases though. 4. Ordering ----------- The price of the program is US$20 or HK$150. A registration code will be given to you after registration. This code can also be used in the future versions of Chinese OS. i.e., users can get the free upgrade as long as I develop this software. :> For asian users, especially Hongkonger, you can register the program by mailing HK$150 cheque to LOU Chi Wai 416, Han Ching House, Yee Ching Court Shamshuipo, HONG KONG with your email address and the username of your palmpilot. I will send the registration code to the email address. If you do not have email account, you can mail me with your snail mail address with postage. I will mail you the code by snail then. You can find the username of your palmpilot by looking at the HotSync. The message "Welcome, XXXXX" will be shown on screen where XXXXX is the username that I want. You can also register online through Kagi. Please refer to my homepage http://www.hk.super.net/~cwlou for detail. Remember to send me the username at the "comment to author" field. 5. Known Bugs ------------- a. Word wrapping not work very well on OS1.0 (I have no solution to fix it :) (I don't have old pilot 1000 or 5000, so if you find bug in this machine please let me know, but I don't think I can fix it very quickly) 6. Future Plan -------------- a. Add custom input method so that user can generate its own english->chinese database for input. Useful for users who input chinese names only. Note: I have no plan to add handwriting input due to the speed of the CPU and ... most importance, I don't know how to do it :) 7. History ---------- 10/6 Chinese OS 1.11 Add Cantonese input method for BIG5 version, To enable it, install cttable?.pdb and select Custom in Chinese Keyboard. All input methods can use graffiti to input chinese. User can hide the virtual keyboard to save space to view text. 9/21 Chinese OS 1.1 Release GB version and full BIG5 version. Fix a bug that deleting a chinese character didn't work on single line field. 9/10 Chinese OS 1.03 Fix a bug that the field height don't change automatically after invoking chinese keyboard (e.g., in address book, choose a field, invoking the keyboard, type some return and quit. In english keyboard, the height of the field should be changed. The tapping bug is fixed. The backspace, forward (>) and backword(<) strokes will now detect if the character is chinese character, so that the backspace will not delete only half chinese character... After the tapping action, the OS will now detect if the insertion point of selection positions are at the middle of chinese character. If yes, the position will be reset to a proper position, so user should not mistakenly set the insertion point at the middle of chinese character. Add a time delay at the registration dialog ;P, user must wait for ten seconds to enter Chinese OS if he is not registrated Fix the bug that mess the screen after popping up Chinese Keyboard in 'Owner' with password set. 8/26 Chinese OS 1.02 Great speed improvment, now drawing chinese is as fast as english! 8/13 Chinese OS 1.01 Fix some cosmetic bugs Forgot the add the virtual button ':' for pinyin so that some character cannot be entered. Add one more input method PY-G which allow you to input pinyin by Graffiti rather than virtual keyboard. 8/9 Chinese OS 1.0 (Release) Add Easy input method (just type the begin and end code of changjei). Add Pinyin input method. Activate keyboard once more for english keyboard. Keyboard is now bitmap, so it is now more flexible and the invoking speed is much faster. Marginally speed improvement. Compiled with new gcc 0.5.0, thanks to all the people who develop this useful tools! 7/30 Chinese OS 0.92 Fix bug introduced in 0.91a which makes Chinese OS not work in address book. Speed improvement, the drawing speed is much faster now. The font database is open forever to prevent the open/close database overhead. But now you must reset the pilot before uninstall/reinstall the font database. 7/29 Chinese OS 0.91a beta Link a wrong resource in last version, which will make a fatal exception. 7/29 Chinese OS 0.91 beta No need to tap the field in keyboard dialog to enable graffiti. Now will have auto height change when height is changed after chinese keyboard input. 7/28 Chinese OS 0.9 beta 8. FAQ ------ 1. Your Chinese OS didn't work! Make sure you have installed all needed files, especially cfont.prc. Pilot will not load the database when the memory is full. You should check the memory used by Chinese OS using 'Memory'. It should be about 150K when the font database and one input method are loaded. 2. Why I can't invoke the Chinese Keyboard? Like the english keyboard, the chinese keyboard can be invoked only when a field is focused. Try to open a memo in memopad and invoking chinese keyboard again. 3. My system seems slower than before. Yes, I overload several system traps which are frequently used by the system. Because I need to check if you words are chinese or english. It must have some time penalty. Anyway, I have tuned the program as fast as possible :> 4. Many symbols, like pound, didn't show correctly anymore. It is because chinese character set are overlapped with those characters, I cannot know whether it is symbol or chinese, and I cannot fix it. 9. Contact ---------- Any comment, please e-mail to cwlou@hk.super.net.