Chinese Language on Windows Mobile 6

I recently purchased an HTC Touch with the English OS but it did not come with a software program to read and write Chinese. I know other users have said CE-Star is a good program but this is a fee based program and since I am a college student and used most of my English teaching money just to buy the phone I prefer some type of freeware. Any other programs out there for Windows 6 that will help read and write Chinese? Thanks in advance!
 

sfrrr

状元
I don't know of any freeware that works for Chinese IME. If you find one, please let us all know.

Sandra
 

chao-ren

进士
I think the reason your English version of HTC Touch does not come with a free copy (or OEM version , as we call it ) of CE-Star, is probably because you didn't buy it from an official reseller. All English interface versions of HTC Touch whether you've purchased them from Hong Kong or Singapore should come with a free copy of CE- Star in the install diskettes. There are two install cdrom diskettes. Please check whether this is the case. Maybe you just didn't realize that you can install a free copy of CE-Star from the install CDROM's that come with the package.
 

ldolse

状元
CE-Star really screws around with your system, it's quite annoying IMHO. Everything CE-Star does can be done for free aside from Handwriting recognition. Speaking of which, Mike, does your license allow the Hanwang recognizer to be converted to a full fledge SIP? This would be awesome if that could be done someday. The only other piece that is a bit difficult to do is support for Big5 and GB2312 encoded web pages - CE-Star has a special hack which does this, but uses a lot of memory. If you really need to see those types of pages a better solution is to find a cooked ROM with a WinCE.nls file containing the Chinese encodings. I've never needed to read those types of web pages on my PPC, so just enabling the character display and installing a free IME is enough for me.

To display chinese throughout Windows Mobile:
You need to move the font to \Windows\ folder. Exit PlecoDict completely, using the Quit command in the Dict menu, then use File Explorer to go to \\Program Files\PlecoDict; tap-hold on SimSun and choose "Cut" from the menu that pops up. After that, go to \\Windows\, tap-hold in an empty space in that window and choose "Paste" to move the font there.

Then follow the instructions linked at this thread: http://plecoforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=929

Follow the MSDN link there for general instructions and use the thread post for specific instructions for ZYSong.

Soft reset your Pocket PC (stick a paperclip in the reset hole in the back). Chinese should be displayed throughout your system now. In Microsoft Word ZYSong should now show up in the list of available fonts.


To Input Chinese:

I started using ZTA4 for Pinyin input, though it also seems to support bopomofo and t9 styles as well. It walks all over CE-Star's pinyin input. (much better prediction, learns, and allows you to enter just the first pinyin letters of each syllable in a phrase for faster entry)

Oh, and it's free too:
http://www.a4user.com/A4_down_sip.asp

Other things you need to be aware of:
  • Pocket Outlook will default to your local encoding when sending email, you need to manually change each chinese email to UTF-8
  • - SMS support is dependent on your carrier. Most U.S. carriers can't handle chinese SMS, most Asian ones can. If the carrier supports it you don't need to do anything special.
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
The license is kind of vague about what exactly we can do with the recognizer, but since the original intent was that we'd be using it specifically in Chinese learning software and Hanwang is an extremely important business partner of ours I don't think we'd actually try making our own SIP without their specific permission. Plus, to be honest it's not a market that appeals to me that much; CE-Star and Monster Chinese certainly have their problems, but producing a better product than theirs would be more about execution than about innovation, and I've always been much more interested in the latter.
 

ldolse

状元
I can understand the hesitation. It's unfortunate no one out there has a nice handwriting SIP that doesn't ship with a bunch of other garbage, but that's not really your problem.
 
恕我孤陋寡聞

I'm tryoing to use the fonts with PlecoDict as a system font on my HTC Touch (i'll want to get this part sorted before I try any IME's)

I've copied the file across and changed the registry settings as suggested but I only seem to be half way there - the ZYSong font apears to be available for Word but not throughout the system. I replaced NSims(I have a traditional version of Plecodict so used ZYSong in place of NSimSun as I saw in the forums to do for later versions of PlecoDict (e.g Tahoma : \\Windows\\simsun.ttc,ZYSong) The SkipTable Key I had to create myself is that right?

Any ideas why I'm not seeing the Chinese as a system font?
 

ldolse

状元
That MSDN article appears to have been edited since I last saw it - it doesn't mention the FontLinkMethods key, which also needs to be modified. You should send all the keys you modified. Also, are you sure you put the font in the windows folder? If it's in \windows\fonts\ it won't work with that key.

Maybe the 2.0 installer will be able to set these keys to eliminate this setup problem......
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Probably not, since we've gone to such great lengths to make it possible to put a font file on a memory card; this doesn't present any problems for Pleco anymore, but it can wreak all kinds of havoc on Windows' built-in font system.
 

Jaybo2002

Member
I seem to have the same problem as Wolly Jumper. I followed the directions given here and MSDN adding the missing keys and moving the Simsun font to the font folder in Windows. I erased the Simsun font in the Pleco folder. Pleco still works fine, and if I make the font change in Word chinese characters work there too. However, it doesn't seem to be system wide. When I try to view Chinese on the internet using either Explorer or OperaMini, I get the little squares not characters.

In the Registery keys I notice that MSDN uses double \ (\\) and on the notes here you use a single \, which is correct? I used a single backslash. FontLinkMethods is described as set to 1.

I am using an AT&T Tilt (HTC Kaiser) and have had not trouble at all with Pleco Dictionary.

Thanks for any help.

Jaybo2002
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
You'd want a single backslash - the double is because when you're typing a string in a computer program a single backslash is normally an escape character; hence in an installer or other such program you'd type two slashes.
 

renovator

榜眼
My Imate PDA2k is finally on its deathbed after 4 years or so of great service. Probably one too many hours of flashcards finally did it in and it crashes and loses all data every 6 hours or so. Can't wait for the IPhone so have ordered the HTC Diamond. It has Windows Mobile 6.1. Do I just use the Pleco instructions for WM5 to install Pleco on HTC Diamond or do I need to jump through any other hoops. Thank you for your support.
 
Hi Thanks for your help. Here I have listed all the keys I changed

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\GDI
FontLinkMethods : 1 (0x000001) Decimal (Had to create this one)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\GDI\GLYPHCACHE
Limit : 400 (0x000190) Decimal

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\FontLink\SystemLink
Ariel : \Windows\fonts\simsun.ttc,ZYSong
Times New Roman : \Windows\fonts\simsun.ttc,ZYSong
Tahoma : \Windows\fonts\simsun.ttc,ZYSong
Courier New : \Windows\fonts\simsun.ttc,ZYSong
Symbol : \Windows\fonts\simsun.ttc,ZYSong
All REG_SZ

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\FontLink\SkipTable
Tahoma : 005c,00a5,007e,0391-03c9,2026,2116,221a,25a0-25ff
REG_SZ

I'm using the Regedit program supplied with the HTC touch to make these changes. I've tried canging the .ac3 extnsion to .ttc as above (the font file seems to be.ttc) I still have the same results.
 

daniel123

榜眼
For CE Star cause some problems on my iPaq 114 and I didn't want to edit the registry I looked for an alternate free and easy method to read Chinese fonts overall on the system and I found the following page:

http://www.trendsmobile.com/main/showse ... rentID=255

It is freeware and works great under Windows Mobile 6. Just needs to install 2 cab files. Hope it is useful for somebody.

Daniel
 

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Had to delete this link - sorry, but even though I'm sure this particular item is legit there's too much pirated software on rapidshare for us to send any traffic their way.
 

ipsi

状元
For those of you struggling to get Chinese support working, it might be worth trying what's suggested here:

http://blog.int64.org/2008/09/04/adding ... -mobile-61

While it's for Japanese support, not Chinese, the principle is the same. I installed the sunglobe file and didn't see Chinese (forgot to reboot though), then used the suggestion provided above and added Segoe Condensed. Reboot, and it all works perfectly (Well, IE does, I'm sure everything else will too)! :D
 

daniel123

榜眼
If you are just interested to input Chinese characters via Pinyin keyboard as far as I can see the cooltek keyboard does the same thing as ZTA4. The link is still the same as I reported some mails before:

http://www.trendsmobile.com/main/showse ... rentID=255

ZT4 is freeware. It has a great and intelligent keyboard for input of Chinese characters and does everything that is needed to display Chinese fonts all over the system.

I used it for months now also together with Pleco2 and it works great. The only thing that is missing is input via stylus. For this I use Pleco and cut&paste. :)

Daniel
 
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