Chinese character input using touchpad.

[orionisastar]

Is there a way to enter Chinese characters on the G1 phone? I read a few posts about Chinese->English dictionaries, but for a dictionary to be useful for me I need to be able to write characters I'm not familiar with (rather than enter them with pinyin) and then look them up. I'm ready to buy an Ipod touch so that I can gain such a feature but someone offered me a G1 last night that she got from work and if I can use that I'd be much happier. I just read that Pleco is not developing for Android but if there is any similar application I'd be very interested. Thanks.

[paul roberts]

there's some info about the htc virtual keyboard for the magic on this thread, it has Chinese support.

http://androidcommunity.com/forums/182627-post646.html

http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f7/cupcake-1-5-adp-jesusfreke-builds-16883/index65.html

[xor_freecity]

If the G1 has 1.5 (cupcake) firmware, try 'Chinese Pinyin IME' in the android market.

[Stanovoy]

I think what the OP is talking about is to literally write the characters out, instead of using the Pinyin IME to spell them out. I can see how it can be useful if you really have no idea how to pronounce a character (which is required for pinyin to work) but can trace out the strokes.

Come to think about it, being able to trace out strokes and have the final character looked up in a dictionary would be a very useful thing to have. Alternatively, use the camera to take a picture of the character and go from there.

I don't think there's an app for that. But if there is, I'd like to know about it too.

[s_brandon]

If you know the stroke order/radical you can download LianghaoCidian.