**************************************************************************** Note: this document is the readme file of Chinese Editor v0.6. It contains some pieces of Chinese GB code which are not readable under a normal English text editor. You may read them by Chinese Editor after you have installed it. **************************************************************************** “中文编缉” 用户测试版 (0.6版) 一九九五年四月 Chinese Editor Beta (v0.6) April 1995 Author: Jian SHI(石 坚) M. App. Sc. student Department of Computer Science Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Copyright (C) 1995 by Jian SHI. All rights reserved. Contents ======== 1 Why "Chinese Editor" ? 2 Main Features of the Software 3 Install and Uninstall 4 Limitation and Incompatibility 5 Terms and Conditions 6 Acknowledgements 7 Contact Author 1 Why "Chinese Editor" ? ======================== So far very few Windows Chinese application programs have been developped. The reason is probably that some Windows Chinese patcher systems such as CStar and TwinBridge have occured which enable the users to process Chinese through many existing English softwares. While these patcher systems do be powerful and magic, users, however, often encounter the following problems when editing Chinese under such a patcher system environment: 1) a chinese word may be splitted in the middle, which causes the Chinese word as well as the subsequent ones to be displayed as strange symbols. This is because a Chinese word is encoded by a pair of ASCII codes, while an English application program processes each single ASCII code. If a pair of ASCII codes that encode a Chinese word is spilitted, a wrong code combination may result; 2) when the patcher system is running, some irrelevant characters on the screen may be displayed as meaningless Chinese words. This is because a patcher system tends to translates all ASCII characters that are within the Chinese coding scheme as Chinese words. If an application happen to display such characters, these characters may be indiscriminately converted into Chinese words by the patcher system; 3) the application programs are slower when running with a patcher system. This is because the patcher system puts a layer between the application programs and the Windows operating system. In order to overcome the above problems, it would still be the best approach to develop independent Chinese application programs under Windows. Chinese Editor is such a Chinese word processing program that runs directly on Windows (version 3.1 or above) operating system without requiring any underlying Chinese operating system's support. Chinese Editor tries to provide users with an Chinese equivelent of normal English text editor under Windows, by which the user can edit GB code Chinese document files, ASCII code English text files, or files mixed in both, using standard Windows text edit functions such as select, cut, copy, and paste. The resulting files are in standard ASCII text file format, and are exchangable among most Chinese and English word processors. This beta release of Chinese Editor is for anyone's trial use. It is free, but you should read the "Terms and the Conditions" section in this readme file. Some functions, such as printing and on-line help, are disabled in the program. This is because they are either still undergoing development, or will only be provided with the registered copys in the future. The following sections describe the main features of this beta version Chinese Editor, and give important information about using this software. The author welcomes any comment, suggestion, and bug report regarding this software. Please read the "Contact Author" section in this readme file for how to contact the author. 2 Main Features of the Software =============================== This beta version of Chinese Editor has the following main features: 1) It supports a multiple document interface. The user can open and work on several documents at the same time. 2) It supports standard Windows select, cut, copy, and paste operations. The user can select, cut, copy and paste Chinese text just as s/he does to English text. Through these operations, the user can exchange data between the documents openned on Chinese Editor, or with other Chinese or non- Chinese Windows applications that accept ASCII text. 3) It supports "word wrap" and "auto wrap". "Word wrap" refers to the function that when the user's typing is beyond the right margin, the current word (whether Chinese or English) will be moved down to the next line. "Auto wrap" refers to the function that the program will automatically break all long document lines into short ones that fit the current margin when loading a document. This function is useful for reading some electronic Chinese magazine such as <<华夏文摘>>, in which each paragraph consists of a single long text line. Both "word wrap" and "auto wrap" functions are optional. The user can set any of them as default by checking it in the "Preference" dialog box under the "Option" menu command of the program. The margin that "word wrap" and "auto wrap" functions are based on is defined by the "Line wrap at" selection in the "Preference" dialog box. The user can set it from 1 up to 2047 Chinese words (in Chinese Editor, an English character is half of the width of a Chinese word). In addtion, Chinese Editor provides a "wrap line" menu command which has a corresponding button on the tool bar. The user can choose to wrap the long document lines after the document is loaded simply by pressing the button. 4) This beta version Chinese Editor (and up to version 1) supports only PINYIN and ASCII input method. The latter is for typing English text. The user can set the default input method in "Input Method" dialog box under the program's "Option" menu command. Note that the default input method only applies to a newly openned document. It is different from the current input method (see next section). 5) Chinese Editor provides a "dynamic input control bar". This input control bar displays such information as the current input method, the PINYIN key the user input, and a list of Chinese word retrieved. In addition, it presents a series of buttons. Instead of keyboard, the user can use mouse to change the current input method, to select a Chinese word from the list, or to shift the word list to its left or right side* directly on the input control bar simply by clicking a button. Moreover, what displayed on the input control bar are dynamic. They always relate to the current document, and vary with user's action, and with the user's switching from one document to another. This feature is useful in some situation. For example, if the user is working on two documents at the same time, of which one is in Chinese and the other is in English. When the user switches from one document to the other, s/he does not need to change the editor's input method. The input control bar switches the system, and displays the related information automatically. * You can press "-" and "=" key to shift the retrived Chinese word list to the left and the right. This is compatible with CStar. 6) Drag-drop operation is supported. The user can open a document simply by drag and drop the document icon from the file manager's window to Chinese Editor's main window. The user can also launch Chinese Editor by double click the associated document icon on file manager's window. 3 Install and Uninstall ======================= The package of this beta version Chinese Editor contains four files. They are: 1) README.GB -- this file; 2) CHEDIT.EXE -- main program; 3) PINYIN.DIC -- PINYIN dictionary; 4) CH16.FON -- Chinese font library. If you received the package in its zip form (a single file named CHEDIT06.ZIP), you need to unzip it first. Please note that CH16.FON file in the above is borrowed from Way3100 (Please read "Terms and Conditions", and "Acknowledgements" sections). If you received a package which does not include CH16.FON file (this may happen if you obtained the package from ftp.ifcss.org), you will have to ftp it yourself, and the path is ftp.ifcss.org/pub/software/fonts/gb/ms-win/wayfont.exe. This is a self-extracting archive. You simply execute it to extract CH16.FON file. To instal Chinese Editor, create a directory on your hard disk, for example C:\CHEDIT and copy all files in the package into the created directory. You may also choose to copy CH16.FON file to Windows system directory. To establish a program icon, open the group window where you want to put the program icon in. Then open the "File" menu on Windows program manager's menu command bar, choose "New...", then click "Program Item" radio button, and press OK button. In the "Program Item Properties" dialog box, type in C:\CHEDIT\CHEDIT.EXE as the command line, then press OK button. To uninstall Chinese Editor, simply delete the directory you created together with its program icon. If you don't want to run Chinese Editor any more, you may delete the chedit.ini file under Windows directory. Chinese Editor does not leave any garbage on your hard disk. 4 Limitation and Incompatibility ================================= 1) The current version of Chinese Editor can load documents which are no longer than 2047 lines, and each line may contain no more than 2047 Chinese words or English characters including the spaces. This limitation is hopefully to be removed in the future versions. 2) IMPORTANT: Chinese Editor can NOT run with CStar, TwinBridge, or other similar Chinese patcher systems. While you are running Chinese Editor, you should shut down any of them if it is active. 5 Terms and Conditions ====================== The author of Chinese Editor owns the copyright of this software,and all rights are reserved. The author permits anyone to copy, distribute, and use Chinese Editor version 0.6, without any charge provided that 1) you do not copy, distribute, and use Chinese Editor v0.6 for business purpose, 2) you do not directly make profit from Chinese Editor v0.6, 3) you do not change, modify, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise reverse- engineer Chinese Editor v0.6 in any way, and 4) you copy, distribute, and use Chinese Editor v0.6 in its complete package including this readme file. However, you may copy and distribute Chinese Editor v0.6 without CH16.FON file. THE AUTHOR OF CHINESE EDITOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE PRODUCT. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, THE USER ASSUMES THE RISK OF PAYING THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION AND ANY INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT WILL THE AUTHOR OF CHINESE EDITOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION AND THE LIKE) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. Please note that as indicated in section "Install and Uninstall", this beta version of Chinese Editor borrows the font file CH16.FON from Way3100 (See "Acknowledgements"), the terms and the conditions in this section do not apply to this particular file. Users should find the Way3100 document for the corresponding declaration. 6 Acknowledgements ================== The author would like to thank Tian Bogang, the author of "HBF2FNT : A utility converting "HBFable" hanzi bitmap font to Windows font", for addressing the technology of converting a raw Chinese bitmap font file into a Windows font resource file. This technology has been adopted in Chinese Editor program. The author would like to thank Wang Wei, the author of Way, for creating CH16.FON Windows font resource file and providing it as an individual package in ftp.ifcss.org. This font file has been incorporated into Chinese Editor v0.6. The author would like to thank Ed Lai who creates a machine readable table of Pinyin index to GB code. This table has been used as the base for creating Pinyin input dictionary of Chinese Editor program. The author would also like to thank those unknown people who have created such useful things as Chinese bitmap fonts and GB table for Chinese computing, as well as those people who have been running ftp.ifcss.org. Without accessing to these information, it would be much more harder, or even impossible for the author to create this software. 7 Contact Author ================ The author can be contacted by the following address and phone: Jian SHI 6/75 Edgar Street NTH Glen Iris, Victoria 3146 Australia Phone: 61-3-8223171 Unfortunately, the author does not have a e-mail address at the moment because of the graduation. However, you may send your e-mail to ssx@praxa.com.au, and I will be passed your message.