Ukelele Korean Input

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zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 3:56:12 AM6/2/21
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I'm trying to setup a custom Korean keyboard layout in Ukulele because I normally use the German ISO layout and the Korean layout is much closer to the American ANSI layout with punctuation, etc.

After setting this up in Ukulele with the appropriate keys assigned to their respective Hangul letters, all of the punctuation worked, but the Korean input did not. Normally, when typing Korean, you type one letter at a time and each entry is combined with the previous into a syllable block. E.g. Tying ㅇ, thenㅏ, then ㄴ, will yield ㅇ, then 아, then 안. However Ukulele does not perform this function correctly and rather inputs each Hangul letter as if it were a Latin one. E.g. Tying ㅇ, thenㅏ, then ㄴ yields 'ㅇㅏㄴ' instead of '안' as it should.

Does Ukulele not support Hangul input? Or is there a way to fix this? If so that would be quite useful. I've included a video of the typing process of Korean as well. The first example is standard Korean input and the second is how Ukulele handles it.

Thanks,

zgw3kszo

Standard vs Ukulele.mp4

spaelti

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Jun 2, 2021, 4:00:27 AM6/2/21
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Korean doesn’t use a keyboard, it uses an input method (like Japanese or Chinese). Ukelele is only for making keyboard layouts.
P. Spaelti

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<Standard vs Ukulele.mp4>



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P. Spaelti
Kobe Shoin Women's University

zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 4:05:01 AM6/2/21
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My question pertains to Ukelele's ability to make usable keyboard layouts for Korean, apologies for the incorrect wording.

Tom Gewecke

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Jun 2, 2021, 5:14:26 AM6/2/21
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On Jun 2, 2021, at 3:56 AM, zgw3kszo <zgw3...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm trying to setup a custom Korean keyboard layout in Ukulele because I normally use the German ISO layout and the Korean layout is much closer to the American ANSI layout with punctuation, etc.


Apple provides 5 different Korean IM’s.  Which one do you normally use?

Could you provide some specifics about the key mappings you would like to see changed?

As other have mentioned, Korean is not a simple keyboard layout such as Ukelele creates.  It’s produced the the KoreanIM.app found in system/library/input methods.   Whether it can be modified I’m not sure.

zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 5:20:27 AM6/2/21
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I typically use 2-Set Korean to type Korean but all of my Latin input is done through the Mac German-Standard layout. I'm looking to basically replicate the German-Standard layout but with Hangul keys rather than the QWERTZ that's normally there. 2-Set Korean has the letter keys I'm looking for and German-Standard has everything else.

Gé van Gasteren

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Jun 2, 2021, 6:37:41 AM6/2/21
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As Tom indicated, editing an input method is not easy. Certainly much more involved and more work than editing just a keyboard layout.

Maybe you would be somewhat happy with the CapsLock method:
In System Preferences/Keyboard/Input sources, check the option for using the CapsLock key to switch between a Latin and a non-Latin keyboard layout.
Then you can switch between your QWERTZ-layout and 2-set Korean just by pressing CapsLock.

As a clarification:
Typing Hangul involves not just a keyboard layout, but also a so-called input method.
Therefore Ukelele, which can edit only the keyboard layout, can’t do what you want in this case.
From the manual:
  • Input methods, such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean, will not work with modified keyboard layouts.

Maybe a program like Karabiner can help? I’m not sure how it would interact with the input method, though.

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

I had a quick look online if maybe somebody made a more QWERTZ-like input method for Hangul, but nothing turned up…


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zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 6:41:51 AM6/2/21
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Thanks, I think the CapsLock method will do until something better turns up. It works pretty well anyway. I forgot that was something you could do. In the same realm as a QWERTZ-Korean IME I've been waiting for someone to make a good MacOS and or cross platform automatic Hangul-Hanja IME like FCTIX has on Linux. It types Korean like Japanese doing realtime word for word Hanja transliteration. No one has done such a thing yet though unfortunately.

Gé van Gasteren

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Jun 2, 2021, 6:49:08 AM6/2/21
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Sorry, I don’t understand that terminology :-)
So I’m just wildly guessing that online solutions like this one might be useful:

Gé van Gasteren

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Jun 2, 2021, 7:00:14 AM6/2/21
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And another website that just might be interesting:

Tom Gewecke

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Jun 2, 2021, 7:49:02 AM6/2/21
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On Jun 2, 2021, at 6:41 AM, zgw3kszo <zgw3...@gmail.com> wrote:

 It types Korean like Japanese doing realtime word for word Hanja transliteration. No one has done such a thing yet though unfortunately.

Is what you are referring to with that a lot different than what you get when you set the Input Format in Korean 2-Set Korean to Hangul (Hanja), so that typing ㅎ ㅏ ㄴ  and then option-return gives you 한(韓) ?




zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 8:13:54 AM6/2/21
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For the FCTIX version in Linux I was talking about option+return is unneeded, the menu is up constantly and actively does word for word transliteration. So using the normal MacOS Hangul keyboard you would write 안녕, hit option+return to bring up the menu and hit enter or the corresponding number on 安寧 and then type the rest for 하세요 to leave you with 安寧하세요. With the system FCTIX uses the menu is up all of the time and you simply type 안녕하세요 and then hit enter or the corresponding number and it becomes 安寧하세요. I've attached a video of it in action.
FCTIXHanjaMode.mp4

Tom Gewecke

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Jun 2, 2021, 10:53:03 AM6/2/21
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> On Jun 2, 2021, at 8:13 AM, zgw3kszo <zgw3...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> With the system FCTIX uses the menu is up all of the time and you simply type 안녕하세요 and then hit enter or the corresponding number and it becomes 安寧하세요. I've attached a video of it in action.

Thanks, very interesting.

I had the impression that Hanja are not used very often these days. But perhaps that is erroneous?

zgw3kszo

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Jun 2, 2021, 11:03:46 AM6/2/21
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In daily life it's not used much apart from stylisation and newspaper headlines, hence the lack of a good inline IME for it. But it gets a decent amount of use in the academic and legal spheres and it's taught in schools to improve comprehension. I mainly want it because it's nice to have ane I enjoy reading Korean written that way.

Tom

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Jun 3, 2021, 8:30:35 AM6/3/21
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Thanks for that info.  From some research I gather than a high school graduate is supposed to know 1800 hanja, which must take quite a lot of work.  If I remember right, they have also never been "simplified" like many Chinese hanzi.

zgw3kszo

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Jun 3, 2021, 7:52:27 PM6/3/21
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At current the education is split between middle school and high school and theoretically a student should graduate knowing 1800, but this isn't really so in practise. Hanja past middle school is considered an elective course and so many do not take and then are left with the 900 or less they learned in middle school and are now forgetting in high school. Most Koreans seem to know basic Hanja like 小, 中, 大, 韓, 美, 日, 朴, 金, 男, 女, etc. for things like sizes, countries, surnames, genders, and other things. But the general knowledge is somewhat limited for the common person who has no interest in it. As far as simplification goes, Hanja is probably the least simplified of any character system even of Taiwan and Hong Kong. Because Hanja uses Kangxi dictionary forms which are the oldest standard available. So where Taiwan might use 真, a common variant that has become standard, Korea would use 眞, which is the original form.
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