zen online journal » sip

Multi Language Editor – make it easy

zen — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:57:07 +0000

Found out that my Multi Language editor was not orientation aware, so decided to make the necessary changes. It ended up with an additional feature that allows one to configure the keyboard settings through a user interface, instead of having to fiddle on the registry as in the previous version. In the setting user interface, you will be able to choose the preferred primary and secondary input methods (which usually correspond to a distinct keyboard locale/layout) The primary choice will also be set as your system default keyboard locale accordingly. The latter will be useful when you install third party IME software, as the installation usually overrides your factory default setting, in terms of the keyboard setting.

You can download from this link

Tagged: pocket pc, sip, software, windows mobile, wm6

Multi Lang Editor installation How-to

zen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:37:54 +0000

Re my quicky on multi lang editor development, I didn’t spend too much time with the multi-lang editor development so one had to roll up his/her sleeve just to make it work in his/her device.

1. First, make sure you have installed the alternative lang IME. The installation will default the alternative lang locale as default keyboard layout to be loaded in your device each time you soft-reset. Change the default value under hkcukeyboard layoutspreloaded to “e0010409″ (or whatever locale that was originally preset in your device)

2. Next, verify the keyboard locale, go to registry hkcukeyboard layoutpreload
You should have two key underneath it, “1″ and “2″. Make sure “1″ is pointing to your original keyboard locale, e.g. e0010409. “2″ should be pointing to your alternative locale, e.g. “e00b0409″ or “e0010804″. In my example above, I installed Guobi (国笔) which uses locale “e00b0409″, if you use the qwerty software that was linked in the beginning of this thread, it should be “e0010804″.

Note: if your registry does not have the two key “1″ and/or “2″, then create them accordingly, and make sure for each of the default value under “1″ and “2″ respectively, the locale string is found in hklmsystemcurrentcontrolsetcontrollayouts. Conversely, you must make sure that the default value under hkcukeyboard layoutpreload contains a valid locale, otherwise, it’ll render your hardware keyboard unusable, and you have to use SIP to revert to the right registry setting

3. Then download from the multi lang editor program from this link, copy to your device, and install the cab file.

4. You can then map a hardware key to this program, so that whenever you feel like entering Chinese text, you can open up this program, type whatever you want (if you want to insert English text, just toggle the keyboard layout accordingly), then click “Send SMS” if you want to send it as SMS, or simply click “ok” button which will copy the content into the system clipboard. You can then use MS word mobile, or any other editor, to paste the content into your application accordingly.

Adding Multi Keyboard Layout support in WINCE

zen — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:19:19 +0000

In desktop Windows, you can add additional native language support, which enables you to toggle and choose different keyboard layouts real time, to enter text in different language.In Windows CE, you can install more than one keyboard layout, but you can only use one layout until you modify the registry and soft-reset your phone to activate a different layout.

There’s a way to access all the installed keyboard layouts, without having to perform registry hack and soft-reset the phone. However, it is application-dependent to add this support. And no prize for guessing that Microsoft default applications are not designed to support multi-keyboard either.

So, I ended up creating another small utility, to basically allow text entry using multiple keyboard layout. The utility can transfer the entered text to messaging application, or copied to a word document using cut-and-paste technique.

The program enables you to switch keyboard layout on the fly, so that you can type different language text in the same text editor.If the “ok” button is clicked, then the entered text will be copied into the clipboard, so you can choose to paste it in your favorite applications. Alternatively, if you are lazy like me, just hit the ‘Send SMS’ button, and the messaging application will pop up and the text will be filed in automatically.

Windows CE SIP utility

zen — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 08:07:00 +0000

Here’s the utility that I have created to select the SIP without having to tap on the SIP icon. Obviously, you need to map one of the hardware key to the utility, for my case I use WM5Menu to do it (see below).

This was created originally for me to enable NullKB to be my default key on startup (for some reason, I cannot do that in registry, so I created this utility to be run during a startup) .. since then, I have seen people writing mortscript to switch SIP so I thought I might as well ‘expand’ my little utility project.

I added the popup menu to show the list of the SIP (see below), for selection of the SIP to be switched over to.

I use WM5menu to map the right soft key to the utility.

I have also created a few shortcuts for standards SIP, so that you can immediately switch to the desirable SIP, without having the popup menu for selection. You may map your button to any of these shortcut. You can create new shortcuts if you have third party SIP that you want to map.

~~This program can be download from~~ ~~my blog~~

edit: a newer version has just been released, check this out