Chinese Characters: How exactly does it work?

[nubee]

I'm so lost. I don't even know where to start to open the little screen thing. lol

 

[adwolfe12]

Same thing here. I have no idea where to start with this.

 

[alphaod]

Just enable it in 'Ink'

 

[maberick]

but where do i find this 'ink'?
i opened my System Pref, but there's no other option around..
I am using Macbook the white body type, so was wondering is it because of this, that is why i am unable to use this handwriting function...

 

[NewMacbookPlz]

but where do i find this 'ink'?
i opened my System Pref, but there's no other option around..
I am using Macbook the white body type, so was wondering is it because of this, that is why i am unable to use this handwriting function...

Pretty sure you have to have a multi-touch trackpad MB/MBP/MBA to get this feature.

White/BlackBooks don't have that.

 

[corydoras]

chinese writing

Ya, we have the latest white macbook and the unibody macbook. The chinese writing is so cool but it doesnt work on the white macbook as far as i can tell, only the aluminum one.

 

[maberick]

hmmm... thts bad...
mayb any bros out there with macbook whitebody wanna share their finding...

 

[Watabou]

I don't see it anywhere either. I have an early 2008 macbook pro.

 

[niuniu]

Is there an official demo video somewhere for this?

 

[creon]

Have a Late 2008 Uni Macbook.

Still cant figure out the chinese characters.

Anybody feeling generous and walk me through it?

 

[surrealhope]

-> System Preferences -> Language & Text

Under either Chinese Simplified/Traditional, check "trackpad handwriting"

For me, it's Ctrl + Shift + Space to fire up the handwriting box by default.

 

[integrat.ethis]

Ah, just found it. System Preferences -> Language and Text -> Input Sources. Then in the list, check one of the Chinese languages. You'll see the option for trackpad handwriting, along with a keyboard shortcut, on the right pane.

Makes me really wish I knew Chinese. This is pretty cool.

 

[farmermac]

Have a Late 2008 Uni Macbook.

Still cant figure out the chinese characters.

Anybody feeling generous and walk me through it?

Is there this many people that speak chinese in here?!

 

[creon]

Thanks guys.
Nope, don't speak or write it. Just wanted to check out one of the new features of SL.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Hey! I speak and write it. I tried this on a developer build of Snow Leopard. You have to enable it in the International System Preferences pane. Click the Simplified Chinese option in the Input Menu tab and also click the "show input menu in menu bar" option. Select "ITABC" from the Languages menu bar icon (default should be an American flag) and open up TextEdit. There should be a contextual menu (grey box). On the multi touch trackpad draw a rectangle and then draw a vertical line through the middle (example below). It's the character "zhong" and another character would make it mean China. The other character is relatively harder to write. It's next to the first one if you want to try it.

Here's an example of what it should look like:
中国

 

[zorahk]

Why can't apple get this to work for shinjitai form Japanese characters?

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Why can't apple get this to work for shinjitai form Japanese characters?

You have Chinese.... Japanese = Chinese with a few changes.

 

[maberick]

Ah, just found it. System Preferences -> Language and Text -> Input Sources. Then in the list, check one of the Chinese languages. You'll see the option for trackpad handwriting, along with a keyboard shortcut, on the right pane.

Makes me really wish I knew Chinese. This is pretty cool.

hihi... you are using which model of the macbook?

 

[maberick]

read online saying that to have this handwriting function, i need this file called "com.apple.ink"... search through and can't find it..
can any kind soul maybe send it to me so that i can tried it on my late2008 white body mac..
will feedback once i experiment with it...
pls...

 

[lOUDsCREAMEr]

who cares?? chinese typing just plain sux on Mac OS X

 

[zorahk]

You have Chinese.... Japanese = Chinese with a few changes.

Yeah uh no.

There are huge differences between traditional / simplified chinese and shinjitai Japanese characters.

For example:

中国

中國

or the lack of repeating marker in chinese:

時時

時々

or the Japanese made characters:

畑、峠

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

who cares?? chinese typing just plain sux on Mac OS X

But it's not just plain typing. You can write Chinese with your finger, just like with pen and paper.

 

[klee1987]

You have Chinese.... Japanese = Chinese with a few changes.

NO

That's like saying English = French/Spanish with a few changes

 

[zorahk]

NO

That's like saying English = French/Spanish with a few changes

Except for the part where words adapted from Chinese generally don't even sound like the original in Japanese, where sometimes words in english/french are the same or similar.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

NO

That's like saying English = French/Spanish with a few changes

Wrong. If you study multiple languages, culture, and history you'll know that the Japanese adopted the Chinese language as their own a long time ago. Since then, they've modified it to fit their own needs. It was an understatement to say a few changes, but to say Japanese is a totally different language from Chinese is a blatant lie. French is much different from English or Spanish even though it shares an alphabet. Spanish is different than English too with different sounds and pronunciations. Japanese:Chinese as US English:British English is much closer.

Anyway, my first post about that was intended to be a culturally biased joke. If you don't understand, then just skip the post.