Behold the Table Driven Text Service, Part 10 ("Even Jove nods," Atlas shrugged, "so we'll convert their old files, now.")

Prior posts in the series:

• 0 (You have to start somewhere)
• 1 (Starting with a dictionary simple in every way)
• 2 (Three ways to convert!)
• 3 (Where do keystrokes come in?)
• 4 (Specifying when to modify, if not how)
• 5 (All about the language, baby!)
• 6 (it is sufficient to be iconic, aka DaYi, DaYi Aynu!)
• 7 (Configuration 'junk in the trunk', part 1)
• 8 (Configuration 'junk in the trunk', part 2)
• 9 (Will you be content if I tell you how some content can be defined?)

Last time, I explained a bit about what this one would be about -- it is a pure IME blog posting, so if IMEs do not interest you then you can skip on and wait for the next part....

My exact words were:

Next time I'll look at how to convert from some on the old style IMEs if you have been using them in the past...

I will now explain what the hell I was talking about. :-)

You see, in prior versions of Windows, Microsoft provided for Traditional and Simplified Chinese users the dotIME which was similar to the Table Driven TIP in terms pf lots of its functionality, though it was based more directly on the old IMM (Input Method Manager) based IMEs.

In addition, end users could be create there own dotIME by providing a "dictionary" text file and then running one of the conversion tools (named ImeGen.exe and UImeTool.exe).

Now this text fule format, while very useful for its time, was not the format that the new Table Driven Tet Service IMEs use. Just a slightly different direction, one that is not being carried forward into Vista and beyond. Mea culpa, etc. -- this new format, maybe it will last longer!

Therefore with Vista, those tools (ImeGen.exe and UImeTool.exe) are no longer supported, but Microsoft wanted to provide a way so that a customer could provide the text file nd it would convert the dictionary to the Table Driven TIP dictionary format....

The syntax to make the conversion happen (all on one line)

RunDll32.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Windows NT\TableTextService\TableTextService.dll" DictionaryGenerator [options] <output text file name>

Note that special, case-sensitive DictionaryGenerator keyword.

And the options are as follows:

-format:<name>

Specify input text file format

<format>                Traditional | Simplified | HongKong

-section:<name>:<input text file name>

Specify input text file name for each particular section

This option could be specify one or more of the following:

<name>                  SettingFile | KeyStroke | Radical | Text | Phrase | Symbol

<input text file name>  Specify input text file name

-cp:<code page>

Specify code page value for convert text file to Unicode if input text file(s) are in some other code page. Note that there is only one setting to be used by all files.

<output text file name>

Specify output text file name

Now this converter will only work from the text file, not the binary format file that the older tools (ImeGen.exe and UImeTool.exe) generated.

But if you have the text files this converter will reportedly save you some trouble. :-)

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