ref: c264114b4f3d3aa43e4009cea600768e8da88fd6
author: Ethan Long <ethandavidlong@gmail.com>
date: Tue Jun 15 12:02:41 EDT 2021
Added documentation and a README
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+proposal.pdf: proposal.ms
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+.AU
+Ethan Long
+Email 1: ethandavidlong@gmail.com
+Email 2: u7281759@anu.edu.au
+Phone: +61 476 155 407
+Chat: ethan on 9p.zone or lightningx10 on freenode
+
+.TL
+.CW nIME
+- A better Japanese IME for plan 9 and 9front
+
+.AB
+.CW nIME
+(short for nine IME, pronounced nie-em-ee or nine-em-ee) is a proposed IME for plan 9's
+.CW rio
+environment that more closely replicates the modern IMEs on other operating systems such as anthy, fcitx, or google's IME.
+.AE
+.SH
+Author Background
+.PP
+I am a first year university student doing a Bachelor of Science with Honours (ASCAD) at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
+I am currently studying Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and Chemistry.
+Additionally I am part of the avionics team of the ANU Rocketry Society,
+we are a club that participates in various rocketry competitions and we are currently planning and building a rocket to reach the karmen line.
+I have no formal training in C,
+but I have worked with plan 9 and C on other operating systems,
+just not on a kernel/operating systems programming level.
+
+I have been using 9front as a development/working environment for over a year,
+currently opting for a vmm instance that I drawterm into.
+Because of this,
+I have good knowledge of how the operating system works from a usage and operational perspective,
+I.E. how it all fits together.
+I have yet to get into extensive programming on plan9 apart from basic GUI programs,
+so the project proposal was picked to reflect what should be a relatively simple backend.
+
+I have been studying Japanese since 2015,
+I did a second year University course on Japanese last year as an extension to my high school studies.
+Therefore whilst not native in Japanese,
+I am able to work with the language effectively in an informal context.
+
+The only code samples of my work available will be on my gitlab,
+most of my work is done with the school,
+so I am unable to share a lot of it for academic integrity reasons. The gitlab is available at
+https://gitlab.com/lightningx10/
+
+I edited the p9f wiki sandbox to include the statement "ethan was here" on Apr 13 07:54:59 PDT.
+
+.SH
+Project Information
+.PP
+Despite having UTF-8 support,
+the current solutions for inputting Japanese into plan 9 are old and inadequite for most modern usage,
+with
+.CW ktrans
+being the best implementation available.
+.CW ktrans ,
+despite having fairly good coverage of the Kanji,
+is not intuitive or convenient to use.
+If one wants a particular Kanji and they accidentally miss it in the list of suggestions,
+they have to delete what they typed and retype it.
+Furthermore, if a Kanji is not available in the list of predefined Kanji,
+there is no easy way of telling apart from cycling the list multiple times,
+which can take a long time.
+Typing in
+.CW ktrans is also done in the SKK style,
+which is rarely used nowadays due to its complexity to new users.
+
+The solution to this is to create a new IME for plan 9 using similar principles to
+.CW ktrans ,
+but with a graphical kana to kanji conversion context menu that uses either the keyboard or the mouse to select the desired conversion.
+The user will likely still need to convert words individually rather than whole sentences (it's a lot more complicated to implement such a system),
+but doing so will become easier.
+
+For reference on the kind of menu that this project desires to replicate,
+see the following graphic:
+.PS
+down
+.ps 8
+"Input Word in hiragana" at 0,0
+.ps
+box wid 1 ht .2 fill "Conversion 1" at 0,-0.15
+box wid 1 ht .2 "Conversion 2"
+box wid 1 ht .2 "Conversion 3"
+box wid 1 ht .2 "Conversion 4"
+box wid 1 ht .2 "Conversion 5"
+box wid 1 ht .2 "..."
+.PE
+(Ghostscript does not let the user input Japanese UTF text when using standard troff output,
+so the example is in English)
+
+The list of suggestions would appear if the user is in Hiragana input mode and hits the Space key,
+as that has no grammatical use in Japanese and is a convenient switch to hit.
+The list would be cycled through using Space and Shift+Space to go down and up respectively,
+and also by use of the mouse pointer.
+Like
+.CW ktrans ,
+.CW nIME
+would have separate Hiragana, Katakana, and English input modes, with the Hiragana input mode offering the
+additional Kana to Kanji conversion.
+
+In order to get the list of conversions,
+a similar method to
+.CW ktrans
+would be employed,
+having a dictionary for kana like the SKK one distributed with
+.CW ktrans .
+Such dictionaries are now widely available and open source,
+but feature parity with
+.CW ktrans
+could be met by simply re-using
+.CW ktrans '
+pre-existing supplied open source dictionary.
+
+Longer term, supplimental programs to add new words to the dictionary could be made.
+The program should also be futureproof,
+it should be as modular and hackable as possible to allow for future improvements in giving more personalised convertions, or full sentence conversions.
+
+.SH
+Approximate Schedule
+.PP
+An appoximate order of implementation:
+.PS
+right
+box wid 0.9 "Kana Input"
+A1: arrow
+box wid 1.1 "Context Menu"
+A2: arrow
+box wid 1.7 "Kana → Kanji Conversion"
+A3: arrow
+box wid 1 "Consilidating"
+.PE
+
+.B
+.UL "Kana Input:"
+.R
+Kana input could conceivably take up to two weeks to implement,
+as it would need to include most of the code that intercepts the keyboard and inserts input into programs.
+
+.B
+.UL "Context Menu:"
+.R
+The context menu won't take long to implement,
+.CW rio
+already makes this easy,
+the hardest part will be getting it to accurately place down and getting input from the keyboard as well as the mouse.
+The estimated time for completion thus would be around a week at most.
+
+.B
+.UL "Kana → Kanji Conversion:"
+.R
+This step will by far be the longest.
+A language input system should feel like it is native in the language that it is taking,
+I.E. the system should feel like a Japanese person would actually use it for input.
+The first step would be deciding on the dictionary system to use,
+whether to use
+.CW ktrans '
+existing SKK dictionary,
+or to look for a new one.
+The dictionary would be implemented in plain text,
+either in CSV, or in TSV like the one
+.CW ktrans
+uses.
+Next,
+the reading of the dictionary would be implemented,
+along with perhaps some kind of weighting system to ensure that the more common Kanji conversions appear at the top of the list.
+Then finally testing of the program to make sure it is as functional and seamless as possible for a summer project.
+Thus this would be roughly around 5-6 weeks of work.
+
+.B
+.UL "Consilidation:"
+.R
+If the project is satisfactory in its the implementation and there is remaining time in the project after the last step,
+then additional features would be implemented.
+Such features may include personalised dictionary helper programs,
+ways of personalising the weighting of Kanji suggestions to allow for faster typing,
+conversion of full sentences (Identifying grammar structures).
+
+.SH
+Availability
+.PP
+During the first week of the GSoC,
+the ANU will still be holding exams.
+No lectures will be held during this time,
+and I have no other commitments outside of the ANU Rocketry Society.
+My biggest drop in availability will be during the final 3 weeks of the GSoC,
+when the second semester starts at the ANU.
+I am therefore planning on squeezing the bulk of the work on this project into the first 8 weeks of the GSoC timeline.
+
+.SH
+Mentor Communication
+.PP
+For quick back and forth communication,
+I would be most happy communicating with my mentor over the 9p.zone chat server hosted by kvik,
+but if the mentor wants to talk over the 9fans GSoC IRC channel that would also be fine.
+For updates and long term status communication,
+I would be most happy using email to communicate with them.
+If my mentor disappeared for any reason,
+I'd continue to provide them and the 9fans GSoC IRC with updates,
+whilst asking the wider 9p.zone community for advice if I was really stuck.
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