Replacements for the IME?

[charizardpal]

Are there any Japanese-typing systems that can replace the IME? Its a nuisance to have to click in the bottom right hand corner every time I want to change from 平仮名 to カタカナ!

[Ertai87]

I believe there's a way to hotkey it so you press a sequence of keys on your keyboard instead of clicking that stupid button...I haven't done it though...

[Kaitou Ace]

You can hotkey it. Also if you are ever at a computer with the fonts but not the IME installed, you can use this website: http://ajaxime.chasen.org/ it's an online IME, pretty cool actually O_o;

[kekepania]

I use a program where you just have to put on caps lock to switch to from hiragana to katakana, but the downside is, I have to copy text from there and paste it in forum posts, chat, convos, etc. This computer can't seem to handle an IME, so for now, I can't use the normal one on here. : (

[VraieEsprit]

Shift+Left arrow key+alt.

That will switch you between japanese and english keyboard layout.

My frustration is that the IME isn't as clever as it'd like you to think it is.

And you really have to know how a word romanises to get it to write properly. For example, you can't write "courage" by typing yuki (although people do romanise it that way, and I've seen them leave off the whatever the symbol is called over the "u" to make it longer.) You have to type it properly (yuuki - 勇気) else you get yuki (雪) which means snow.

It's one of the many reasons I hate it when people romanise and drop the elongated characters. Obviously yuuki and yuki are not the same thing so why write them like they are?

Then again, in its infinite wisdom, the IME is also kinda self-contradictory.

There's no such sound in Japanese as "du", it's "zu". The verb tsuzuku
(続く） is generally romanised (つづく) and not (つずく）. So to get tsuzuku to show up in proper text you actually have to type tsuduku not tsuzuku. I won't pretend I know how many words romanise that way...but it's a pain.

It annoys me...

Vraie

[Ertai87]

Unfortunately there's no real way to differentiate between ず (zu) and づ (zu) without making it a different keystroke sequence or making it a choice from a drop-down menu (which would be even more annoying). Also, づ is used very very rarely, so it's not a big deal. The one that really annoys me is ウァ (Wa), which is typed "wha"...I had to ask my Japanese teacher how to type it because it's so counterintuitive...it's in my last name...

[VraieEsprit]

Guess so. Although I'd actually prefer the dropdown menu. I'm vehemently opposed to illogical romanisation as it is *lol* it always annoys me when people use du or dzu for zu, si for shi, li for ri or ti instead of chi etc...and dropping the additional vowels and so on. It's a pain :S

And the kanji works on a dropdown, so...I could handle that. But the option isn't even there...

Sigh ;)

Guess I'm just fussy.

Vraie

[MistressPookyChan]

ime is good once you get the hang of it. I got my computer in Japan and the keyboard layout is a bit different. As with getting a new car or bike, you have get a feel for it.