The Chewing (酷音) input method is an intelligent
Zhuyin input method. It is one of the most popular input methods among Traditional Chinese Unix users.
Chewing was a project established by Lu-Chuan Kung (龔律全) and Jeremy Kang-Pen Chen (陳康本), sponsored by Tsan-sheng Hsu (徐讚昇) from
Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...
.
Their research result (the program) was published under the
GPL.
The Chewing core team extended their work and actively maintains the project.
Motivation
Chewing was inspired by other proprietary intelligent Zhuyin input methods under
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, namely, Wang-Xin (忘形) by
Eten, Microsoft New Zhuyin (微軟新注音), and Nature Zhuyin (自然注音).
Since Zhuyin-based input methods are the most popular among computer users who read and write Traditional Chinese, an intelligent Zhuyin method is a necessity for Unix-like systems in order to attract more users. There was a similar input method,
bimsphone (詞音), which was bundled in
XCIN. However, it does not have a convenient
API for further development.
The original chewing (as developed by Kung and Chen) is no longer maintained, only works with
XIM
The X Input Method (or XIM) was the original input method framework for the X Window System.
It predates IBus, Fcitx, SCIM, uim and IIIMF. The specification is published most recently in 1994 by (and copyright held by) the X Consortium. Although ...
, and doesn't have a generic API for input frameworks. Jim Huang, et al. formed the Chewing core team and extended Gong and Chen's work. Thus the chewing core team renamed the project as "new" chewing (新酷音) to differentiate their work from the original. Nevertheless, the English name has remained "chewing".
Goals
* Split logic and view.
* Support multiple operating systems, and input framework.
* Provide a universal API for input framework and further development.
Supported Systems
Chewing has been adopted by various input frameworks in Unix-like systems.
On these systems, the chewing package is usually split into two parts:
''libchewing'', which handles the actual character selection logic; and
''input framework interface'' for display and preference setting.
For examples:
* ibus-chewing for
IBus
When drinking beer, there are many factors to be considered. Principal among them are bitterness, the variety of flavours present in the beverage and their intensity, alcohol content, and colour. Standards for those characteristics allow a more o ...
.
* fcitx-chewing for
Fcitx
Fcitx (, ) is an input method framework with extension support for the X Window System that supports multiple input method engines including Pinyin transcription, table-based input methods (e.g. Wubi method), fcitx-chewing for Traditional Chinese ...
* iiimf-chewing for
IIIMF IIIMF (Internet/Intranet Input Method Framework) is the default input method framework for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean on old Fedora Linux systems. Since Fedora Core 5, '' SCIM'' has been selected as the default input ...
.
* scim-chewing for
SCIM.
* uim-chewing for
uim
uim (short for "universal input method") is a multilingual input method framework. Applications can use it through so-called ''bridges''.
Supported applications
uim supports the X Window System legacy XIM (short for X Input Method) through t ...
.
uim has a chewing module available separately.
/ref>
There are also chewing input method for Windows (win32-chewing) and Mac OS (SpaceChewing via OpenVanilla OpenVanilla (OV) is a free, open-source text-entry (input method) and processing architecture, and includes a collection of popular input methods and text processing filters. It serves as a bridge between input methods and the operating system. It w ...
).
References
{{reflist
Han character input