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IME Switching and Preference Settings

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On the last page I showed you how to find and install Chinese IMEs for Android 2.x phones. Now that they've installed themselves, you may be wondering how to switch between English and Chinese keyboards, and where to find their settings. Changing input methods is simple: just hold your finger down on one of two places.

Press and hold the button on the lower-left of the keyboard (?123 on the English keyboard) until "Android keyboard" pops up. Then press "Input method" as show here.

If pressing that button does not work or if you have a different keyboard like the HTC Sense "Touch" keyboard, you should still be able to press in the input box where you want to type, and you will get an "Edit text" menu with "Input method".

In "Select input method" press to choose Google Pinyin IME (谷歌拼音输入法), android-tc-ime (注音輸入法, 倉頡輸入法) or whatever you have installed there. On my Nexus One "Google Pinyin" is listed in English by the way, not Chinese. And I'm always interested in hearing from you about what's different on your phone.

If you don't see the "Select input method" dialog box, or if an IME you've installed is not there, go to the Home screen, press the Menu softkey and then "Settings" > "Language & keyboard". Make sure each input method you want to use is selected with a checkmark. Below I have more screenshots and info on Settings.

I took these screenshots using the Android emulator on my PC desktop. The emulator includes Google Pinyin, a Japanese IME and the standard Android keyboard, and in fact it starts up in Google Pinyin! I don't know anything about the Japanese IME, but below are some screenshots of the Google Pinyin IME.

Google Pinyin places a space between each Pinyin "word" even when you are trying to type associated characters that make up cizu like zhineng. I hate that! But I've ranted about that before, in articles on Pinyin history, IBus Pinyin and Microsoft SimpleFast.

To switch back to English or to another input method, press and hold the key at the lower-left (中文 in this example, but it's actually ?123 in later versions) or press and hold a text input box.

To change your settings, in the last screen above you can instead press "Google Pinyin settings" as it says in English on my Nexus One, or in the example above "谷歌拼音输入法设置" which is what it will display on my phone only when I have the entire system set to a Chinese locale.

You can also get to Google Pinyin settings and the settings for all other IMEs from the Home screen, no matter which keyboard you last used.

On the Home screen just press the Menu soft key on your phone. Then press "Settings".

Now you're in the Settings screen. Scroll down and press "Language & keyboard". It's near the bottom of the list.

In "Language & keyboard settings", you'll find that you can turn input methods on and off and also adjust their preferences. (You can also make almost everything in your phone display in Chinese using "Select locale" but I'm not going to demo that now.)

In the example here the name "Google Pinyin" is in Chinese (谷歌拼音输入法), but as I said on my Nexus One it's actually in English. This is just my PC desktop emulator again.

Press "Google Pinyin settings" and you'll find several more options than shown here. The latest version on my phone offers "Stroke input" and "Traditional Chinese". You can also tell it to stop making sounds when you type, not to predict phrase associations for you, and so on.

OK, I'm done playing with my emulator now. I feel like a real developer just for getting that thing installed! Maybe I'll try developing something beyond the "Hello Android" example. Or not. :-) Anyway, if you have any questions on using your Android Chinese features, feel free to contact me anytime.

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