Behold the Table Driven Text Service, Part 0 (You have to start somewhere!)

This is the first blog in a series that will talk about the table driven text service, a new feature added in Vista which, among other things, deals as decisively as possible with two conflicting issues:

• The limitations of keyboard layout DLL files in Windows, and
• The Huge amount of complexity implicit in the Text Services Framework

There are just so many different input methods that are too complex for one but do not require the intense complexity of the other....

And thus was born TableTextService.dll, a file that looks for a specifically formatted text file to drive it and does its own work to sit atop the Text Services Framework.

Yeah!

Here is some basic info about it:

Overview
Table Driven Text Service is possible to define and customize your own Text Input Processor (TIP) on Text Services Framework for easier way. You prepare one text file which defines system, some configuration information, and mapping table of keystroke to text, mapping table of text to phrase. We called it as dictionary file.

Some dictionary files are already included on Vista product.

You could find below the keyboard layouts from the General tab, Add… push button in the Text Services and Input Languages portion of the Regional and Language Options control panel applet, Keyboards and Languages tab, Change keyboards… push button:

• Chinese (Taiwan) – Chinese Traditional Array (version 6.0)
• Chinese (Taiwan) – Chinese Traditional DaYi (version 6.0)
• Chinese (PRC) – Chinese Simplified QuanPin (version 6.0)
• Chinese (PRC) – Chinese Simplified ShuangPin (version 6.0)
• Chinese (PRC) – Chinese Simplified ZhengMa (version 6.0)
• Yi (PRC) – Yi Input Method (version 1.0)
• Amharic (Ethiopia) – Amharic Input Method (version 1.0)

This picture shows adding above seven keyboard layouts.

Upcoming posts in the series will talk about the text file format and the features it exposes, as well as how you would create your own text files.

And I have mentioned some of own forays into this area myself, in prior blogs:

• We weren't Vista heroes, but I think we were kinda heroic
• Return of the Unicode IME
• Behind the return of the Unicode IME
• Creation of transliterating input methods
• The Cantonese IME (not for input of characters from Canton, Ohio)
• And we are the knights who say நீ (NII)

And I will be (in addition to some of these examples) using additional examples to show more about the text files and how they work.

I also hope it will be a lot of fun....

So if everyone could make sure their seatbacks are in an upright and locked position and that all of their carry ons are stowed, this flight will be taking off, right now!

This post brought to you by ✈ (U+2708, aka AIRPLANE)