KanjiBase for Windows

Author: Christian Wittern

Installing KanjiBase for Windows

Using KanjiBase for Windows

When you click on the icon in the Program Manager windows, KanjiBase for Windows (from now on abbreviated as KBWIN) will show a welcome screen and then immediately

display the search window, where you can enter search keys to query the database. Before doing so, you should check, if the preferences are set according to your needs, by clicking on the "Pref" button on the far right end of the screen.

Setting the Preferences

• Here is a short explanation of the settings:

• General

• • Directory:You set here the directory, where all the files for KBWIN are located. This is the most important setting of all. The program will not work, if this directory points to a wrong location. If something goes strange, check first, if you have the correct entry here. Other programs, for example the Macros in Kanjitools for WinWord will also use this entry.

  • RamdiskIf you want to speed up the operation, you can create a Ramdisk and enter the drive letter here, e.g. F:\ if you Ramdisk is drive F. Refer to your DOS manual to learn how to create a Ramdisk. The Ramdisk can be as small as 10kB.

  • CodeKBWIN is designed to operate on the Taiwanese Big5 Version, the Japanese (Shift) JIS version, or any other version of Windows 3.1. Select the code according to the version you are using.

  • FontSelect here the font for paste operations. This does not always apply.

• Special

• • Post to WORDIf you have a copy of Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0, then you can use KBWIN to paste the Kanjicodes directly into your Word document. This works only if Word is already up and running and the cursor is in a document window waiting for input.

  • Read-onlyCheck this box if you want to prevent accidental changes to the database.

• Range for Fourcorner InputThe main query method for KBWIN makes use of the Four Corner system. A four digit code is assigned to every character in the database, for the more frequent characters there is also a fifth digit. For some Four Corner keys there are as many as 250 characters. To filter out unwanted matches in different stages of operation you can select here a subrange of characters.

• • Selected Characters KBWIN supports the creation of a customized list of Kanji that you frequently need. You add characters by clicking on the select box in the KBWIN main window. You need to update the indicesof KBWIN before they become available. If additional characters have been defined, they will also be included as selected characters.

  • Frequent CharactersIf this is checked, you can access the selected characters plus the 5401 most frequently used characters.

  • All CharactersAll characters are available.

Press OK to save the changes to the KBWIN.INI file, which is located in the Windows directory, or press Cancel to close this box without saving the changes.

Looking for a Kanji

Back in the search windows, you can now attempt to locate a Kanji. Enter the Four Corner key, Radical, Pinyin or Strokecount in the textbox where the cursor blinks. You can enter here only if the search window is active, and the textbox has the focus. If you have a mouse, click to the right of "Key", or you can press the <ALT>-Key together with the letter K to get the focus here.

• Conventions for the input key
• The Four Corner code has either four or five digits, leading and trailing 0 have to be input.
• The Radical code has always three digits. Add leading 0 where necessary. Radical code is the number of the radical in the 214 radicals of the Kangxi dictionary. To get a help screen with the Radicals, click on
• Strokecount has always two digits. Strokecount alone is only available for a limited range. Strokecount here always means the total strokecount of all strokes in a character. The strokes are counted in the way it is done in Taiwan.
• Pinyin can be entered with or without tone. No attempt is made to check the input for validity. Pinyin is only available for approximately 30000 characters out of a total of more than 48000.

Two different input keys can be combined with a dot in between to reduce the number of matches. This works only if the characters matching the first key are less than 2500, in many cases Strokecount can thus not be used as the first key. The keys are separated by a dot on the inputline. The input line may scroll out of view with longer keys, but that is no problem.

HINT: Two special commands are available in place of the search key:

• h If you enter a h as the search key followed by a space or the enter key, a list of the most recent used characters will be shown in the selection area, you can select them again when needed.
• r If you enter a r as the search key followed by a space or the enter key, the last character will be posted once again.

In this example, the Four Corner code 7722 and the radical code 170 have been entered. To see the result of the query, press the spacebar or the enter key.

The result of that query can be seen here. Only the first ten characters are shown on this screen.

• Here is what you can see and do on this screen:
• These two little buttons will bring you to the next or previous page. On the first page scrolling to the previous one will bring you the last page. You can also use the keys "<" and ">" to scroll.
• The numbers 1 to 0 correspond to the Kanji above them, you can either enter that number, or click on the Kanji to select the Kanji.
  
• To the right of the rightmost character, you see two more digits. The uppermost digit (2 in this example) gives the total number of pages to select from, the number below (1) gives you the number of the first screen.
• The "Hide" button determines if the selected character is shown if the main window or not, hiding the window is useful, if you only want to use KBWIN for inputting text.
• The "Quit" button lets you gracefully exit the program.

If you click on the first character in the selection window, the KBWIN main window will show you more information about the character.

The search window provides also two help screens, where the Four Corner codes or the Radical number can be selected visually. To see the Four Corner input window, click on the 4Corn button on the left bottom of the screen, the Radical help pops up when clicking on the Rad button to the left of this.

Four corner input window

This window shows the 10 elements from which the Four Corner codes are build. They will provide some visual assistance for remembering, which number belongs to which code. Clicking on an element puts the corresponding code in the input box for the key. After four keys, the selection will be displayed and the four corner window closes unless you check the keep open box.

Radical input window

This window shows the 214 radical elements (the screenshot here has only a selection) of that screen. Clicking on the element will place the corresponding number in the input box for the search key. You may now add the strokecount and press enter to see the selection.

The KanjiBase for Windows main window

• The KBWIN main window has the following elements:

  • Kanji and Code

  • KanjiHere is a bitmapped image of the character. You can doubleclick on it to place it on the clipboard and later paste it in any application.

  • CEF Code, also known as KanjiBase CodeThis is the base of the code that will appear in documents to reference this character.

  • Sequential Number of the characterMainly used for the database maintenance.

  • Select BoxCheck here to put this character in the list of selected characters.

  • Character Information

  • Radical

  • Stroke Count

  • Total Strokes

  • CangjieThe key for the Cangjie input system popular in Taiwan.

  • 4 Corner

  • Dictionary Information

  • MorohashiVolume, Page and Number of the character in the Daikanwa Jiten edited by Testuji Morohashi et. al. Only about 11000 characters have one or both of this information.

  • Far EastNumber of this character in the Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, an excellent dictionary published by the Far East Book Co., Ltd. in Taipei, Taiwan, edited by the late Dr. Liang Shih-Chiu. Special thanks to Carlos McEvilly for providing this table and allowing me to incorporate it into this database. It is a part of Carlos's excellent research tool Bamboo Helper.

  • Readings

  • Pinyin and readings, as well as all the other information in this database are provided as is without any implied claims to correctness or warranty. Some of them have been collected from Ross Pattersons table, others have been inputted over the years by myself. Double clicking on a entry in the list will open a dialog box, here you can enter a reading for a given character.

  • Code Information

  • UnicodeCodepoint of this character in the coming standard code.

  • JISCodepoint in JIS. If JIS has been selected as code in the preferences, this code will be the JIS code of the character inserted in your document.

  • CCCIICodepoint of this character in the Chinese Character Code for Information Interchange, developed by the Chinese Character Research Group in Taipei, Taiwan.

  • Button Bar

  • CopyCopies the CEF code of this character to the clipboard.

  • |<Jumps to the first character.

  • <Scrolls to the previous character (= the character with the next smaller sequential number).

  • >Scrolls to the next character.

  • >|Jumps to the last character.

  • GotoOpens a dialog box, where you can enter a CEF code for the character you want to see. If there is one character or one CEF code on the clipboard it will jump to that character. If something else is on the clipboard, you will need to click two times.

  • New PinyinOpens a dialog box, where you can enter an additional pinyin reading for this character.

  • PreferencesOpens the Preferences dialog box.

  • QuitClick here if you are done.

Some useful tips

Updating the Database

You can correct wrong data or add new information directly in most fields of the main window. This information will be saved to the file when you leave the entry for that character by selecting another character, or by exiting the program. In addition, your changes will be written to a logfile. This logfile can be used to contribute the information you added or changed to the master copy of the database, which will then be redistributed to the other users with the next update of the database.

Indices for the input searches are not automatically updated. To update them, go to a DOS window, change to the directory where you installed KBWIN (the one, that appears in the preferences box). Type updix at the DOS prompt. This procedure takes a long time, so you might want to call it before going out for lunch.

Adding your own characters

The master copy of the KanjiBase database is maintained as a table, from which the binary format for KBWIN and the indices are generated. If you want to add your own characters, you have to do the following:

• Select a code for accessing the character. Codes for private use begin with a "Y", you find a number of empty rows at the end of the database table.
• Add the necessary information to the table. The first fields are mandatory, if you can, fill them, else leave them empty, but don't delete the tag. The rest of the line contains data in a tagged format, where the first (or the first two) letters of the field determine what kind of information they contain. Look at the beginning of the table to learn more about the format.
• Add character bitmaps to the bitmap container files, or store single bitmaps in a location, where KBWIN can find them. For private codes, this has to be a subdirectory of KBWIN's home directory, named with the single letter "Y". The bitmap files themselves have to be named according to the code of the character they contain, the file for the character at codepoint "Y-2121" would get the name "Y-2121.BMP" in the directory "/Y". The bitmap has to be in a 40 by 40 grid.

  Hint: You can use the userfont utility of Chinese Windows to create these bitmaps. If you already have a set of bitmapped user characters (that are not in CNS!!) familiarity with that utility will be assumed. You can create a new font in 40 by 40 grid (ignore the warning that will be thrown at you) and scale you old font to the new grid. These fonts can also be automatically converted to the KBWIN bitmap container file format.