Tobberoth wrote:

Then I realized... you misspelled the DLLs in your post. So I change it again, reboot the computer and.. WOOT.

It works perfectly Thanks so much, finally no more clicking all over the keyboard.

Wow, you're right. I'm sorry for the trouble this caused, but I'm glad you figured it out on your own. I've edited the post to avoid causing trouble to other people. Thanks for noticing!

Edit: I did some research, and apparently Windows XP has an entry for Japanese (00000411), and a second entry for the Japanese IME (E0010411). Changing the IME entry is enough for what we need. In Windows Vista, however, there's only one Japanese entry (00000411), so this is the one we need to change.

Last edited by pazustep (2008 September 08, 8:30 am)

I have a standard US keyboard.  I know the tilde is the switching key between Alphanumeric and Hiragana within the IME.  However, if I use Alphanumeric within the IME, when I hit the apostrophe key on my keyboard, it comes out as a colon.  Other symbols are messed up too, for exampl the right parentheses is a left parentheses, it looks like within the IME Alphanumeric a Japanese keyboard layout is used.  This is really annoying for typing in English.  So I have to switch from the IME, back to the US keyboard layout.  I just want to know if there is some way to make the alphanumeric part of the Japanese - IME to use the Japanese - US keyboard layout.

Also, I:ve set the default input as Hiragana, but when I switch from Japanese - US keyboard to Japanese - IME, it always starts as Alphanumeric and then I have to hit the tilde to change it to hiragana.  Does anyone know how to change that?

I do wonder why Japanese businesses do not switch to a Dvorak layout. The balance of "vowels" to "consonants" in Japanese kana is insanely even. Alternating left to right on the board is obviously easier to type.

Know the sad part, almost EVERYTHING I do at work seems weird to other people: My keyboard layout is Dvorak, which is easier to type. My study plan for Japanese is easier (Anki, AJATT, RTK, immersion), but they want to just take a class. My diet works (Zone Diet), yet they think just watching what they eat will work (despite being overweight, and low in energy) but it seems weird to not eat bread, or macaroni or rice or potatoes in exchange for salad or fruit and fats and meat. My exercise routine works (about the strongest, fastest guy on the ship), yet it seems weird to go all out and exercise only 20 minutes and not do bench press, arm curls, crunches and run for hours.

I know all these things work, but people are so set into the mindset that they "know" what works, even though they're not getting results when putting it into practice. In my mind, results are everything. Effort is meaningless if it results in nothing. Yeah, I take the "Million Dollar Baby" philosophy that "heart" will not win fights.

Sorry, starting to rant on the wrong thread. Point being, Dvorak on the Japanese IME is a god send, so thanks again for the hack.

iSoron wrote:

While on the subject of alternatives, does anyone else use SKK?

SKK is great, and can be much faster to type than MSIME if you're used to it. The only problem is the lack of a decent Windows implementation. There is skkime but for some reason sometimes I have trouble setting it up.

If you can get it working, however, it's fantastic -- specially if you have more than one computer at home. You can setup a skkserver and use it in all your computers, so your user dictionary, and completion behaviour is shared between them.

Last edited by pazustep (2008 September 09, 7:56 am)

nicjsb wrote:

No way... Other people who use alternate keyboard layouts?!?
I personally use Colemak: http://colemak.com/
I use Portable Keyboard Layout also: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pkl/

No way... Other people who use Colemak?!?
I just use Ryan Heise's modified version of autohotkeys when I have to use windows. http://www.ryanheise.com/colemak.exe

It gets around having to do the registry hack, etc.

uberstuber wrote:

I'm just curious, why is SKK any faster? I would find having to hit shift all the time kind of annoying.

1. You don't have to hit enter when typing hiragana. It is 'committed' automatically.
2. When typing katakana, you don't have to type the whole word in hiragana and then convert it to katakana. You just switch to katakana mode (q key) and type it. It is committed automatically too.
3. If you know SKK will choose the right kanji, you don't have to hit space at all. Eg, TaBeru.
4. It has auto-completion. Eg, Tosho<tab><space> turns into 図書館.
5. It can convert numbers (I'm not sure if Windows IME can do that). Eg, /12345<space> turns into 一万二千三百四十五. It can convert dates too. Eg, /2008y10m10d<space> turns into 2008年10月10日.

Sentence example:
qkinoqnoTabi<space>haOmoshiroIdesu.
キノの旅は面白いです。

mentat_kgs wrote:

I can't figure out how to do go from hiragana to romanji mode with a hot key.　In vista it used to be alt + ‘　What's it in XP?

That is it, at least on my XP machine. After ALT + SHIFT to activate the IME,   ALT +` toggles between alphanumeric (romaji) and hiragana.

Yeah, this is wonderful, thanks a lot

Sorry to necro this topic, but what alternatives are there to MS' buggy trash IME? I tried installing SKKIME (a windows version of SKK), but then I can't find the program! The installer never even allowed me to choose where it would be installed.. how the hell am I supposed to know where it is? It isn't in the typical places windows puts programs.

I installed that tool, but how do I use it?

Oh, it works with the windows language bar. OK, looks good, thanks.