CJK Input Methods

While writing in most languages is character based, in eastern languages it is word based and results in different input methods.

Status

Japanese and Chinese

input methods work similarly. The main difference is that Japanese has an alphabetic form called Hiragana (it actually has two but the other one, Katakana, is used for foreign words that don't generally map to Chinese characters, called Kanji in Japanese) so a Japanese using a Japanese keyboard will type in Hiragana or using a Roman keyboard in a literation called Romaji while a Chinese will type in a Romanization, nearly always Pinyin. The IME will use the entry to present a list of possible character completions in a drop-down list that changes as more letters are typed, somewhat like, though vastly more complex than, the typeahead search in the register.

Japanese

is based on the Chinese character, but using phonetic symbols for publishment is acceptable. So, you can input Chinese character used in Japanese with phonetic symbols.

Chinese

character used in Chinese can be input via phonetic symbols (Pinyin in Mainland, Zhuyin in Taiwan) or structure components (Wubi/Zhengma in Mainland, Cangjie in Taiwan), which both are mapped to US keyboard.

Korean

is written in an alpha-phonic system called Hangul so the input method is a simple keyboard mapping.

Modern Korean has dropped the Chinese character. The Korean character only shows exact pronunciation and is just like what you write down phonemes into a small square area. You can imagine a keyboard layout to input international phonemes.

Modern Vietnamese

is another language that has dropped the Chinese character. It has its own alphabet which also represents a pronunciation rule like Korean, but its writing is just like Latin - one letter by one letter from left to right.

Docbook

<keycap>

TBD: How to port it?

To get the Euro symbol € on a german keyboard,

<keycombo>
  <keycap>AltGr</keycap>
  <keycap>E</keycap>
</keycombo>

(AltGr+E) has to be entered.