One problem with typing in FLEX

[Quang Tung]

Dear friends in FLEX community. I have a question please help me.

When typing Vietnamese language in FLEX,  I realized when I type vowels "ô", "ơ", "ă", "â", they always have the repetition: ô becomes oô, ơ becomes oơ, ă becomes aă, â becomes aâ. Do you know any solution ? Please help me.  I only use US keyboard. As well as many Vietnamese people, I also use Unikey software to type Vietnamese language. Here is the link to the software: https://unikey.vn/vietnam/#nav4. Both 32 bit or 64 bit have this problem

I please send to all of you picture of my problem, my project. Please help me 

--

TẠ QUANG TÙNG

Nghiên cứu khoa học tại Phòng Nghiên cứu Ngôn ngữ các dân tộc thiểu số ở Việt Nam,Viện Ngôn ngữ học

Địa chỉ: Số 9 Kim Mã Thượng, Cống Vị, Ba Đình, Hà Nội

Mobile: 0968 70 73 71

Email: quangt...@gmail.com

         

[Quang Tung]

Here is the Unikey software I am using

[Thuan Le]

Hi,

I had the same problem when working on my Vietnamese database. It was so frustrating, I hear you 😄

I switched from UniKey/EVKey to the Vietnamese input method provided by Microsoft, and it works like a charm! Here's how I did it on Windows 10:

1. Go to Windows Settings > Time & Language > Language. Scroll to the 'Preferred language' section and choose 'Add a language'.

2. Type in the search box 'Vietnamese', select the Vietnamese module, then click 'Next'. 

3. Click 'Install' on the next screen. The optional features (language module, text-to-speech, and handwriting) are not required, so feel free to de-select them.

4. You should see 'Vietnamese' in the Preferred language list now. Click its up arrow button repeatedly to move the language to the top of the list and make it the default input method, if you type in Vietnamese a lot. Then, click on it and choose 'Options'.

5. In the 'Keyboard' section, choose 'Add a keyboard' and select either Vietnamese VNI or Vietnamese Telex.

6. You should see an input editor button near the clock on the taskbar. It should show something like ENG or VIE, which tells you the input method you are using. Click on it to switch to Vietnamese (if not yet done).

You should now be able to type in FLEx without the annoying 'redundant characters' :D The Windows input method was based on the source code of UniKey, and EVKey is a port of UniKey, so basically they are the same under the hood. But it is less advanced than those two software (some functions like macros (for "bảng gõ tắt") are not available, and it uses the old system for tonal marks placement (òa, úy instead of oà, uý). It comes with its own quirks and annoyance like auto-correct and auto-replace, but some of them can be turned off in Windows Settings > Peripherals > Typing). Guess this will make do until a better solution for typing in Vietnamese is found or developed.

===

Some more technical notes if you are interested in why this happens: I dug through the FLEx Conceptual Model document, and looks like the issue with Vietnamese typing was (incidentally) by design. When you type into FLEx, the program breaks each Unicode character into the Normalization Form Decomposed (NFD) form. Basically, this means that a character like "ầ" is understood to be 3 different components: a (base),  ̂ (combining circumflex accent), and   ̀ (combining grave accent), but shown as one character "ầ" on the screen. This may explain why when you press 'Delete', it (technically) should start deleting the tonal marks, and then the diacritics, before deleting the base character ("aầ" > "aâ" > "aa")*. So that you can copy text from FLEx to other programs, FLEx saves your input into Normalization Form Composed (NFC), so a character like "ầ" is now simply a single character and when you press 'Delete' the whole character is gone. On the screen, the NFD form is identical to the NFC form, but Unicode-compliant programs will handle them differently. This is a useful insight when instructing others to use FLEx or developing the software.

*Though when I tried it, it deleted the whole "â" in the second step, so my best guess is that FLEx somehow turned "a" + " ̂ " into a single character "â" mid-way. Hopefully someone more more knowledgeable than me can shed light on this more technical side of FLEx.

===

I'd be really happy to have a way to type Vietnamese in the new system for tonal marks replacement with Windows input methods. Thankfully, FLEx does support bulk replacement, so we can always go back and modify entries quickly. But having the standard orthography right from the start is highly appreciated.

P/S: I'm not actively working as a linguist, but I'm highly interested in lexicography and computational linguistics, and I often work with FLEx. Feel free to email me to discuss Vietnamese typing or personal/professional projects related to Vietnamese, and maybe we can work on a solution together 😊

Vào lúc 21:12:18 UTC ngày Thứ Ba, 22 tháng 3, 2022, Quang Tung đã viết: