[UA-EAI] A request concerning entering domain names

Mon Sep 25 23:14:57 UTC 2023

Arnt:

Jiankang's excellent reply brought up an insight which you might find 
helpful: I think your question assumes the use of a relatively simple 
functional keyboard layout[1], where each press of a key on a keyboard 
delivers a character to the application. (This simple model is made a 
little more complex by shift keys[2], dead keys[3] for adding accents, 
modes, etc.) Basically, it is the concept of a mechanical typewriter 
translated into software. A key press triggers a character, with little 
state or intermediate computation or UI.

However, for many languages, including Chinese and Japanese, it is 
typical to use an input method editor[4]. This is an arbitrarily complex 
piece of software, which receives one more many key presses, combines it 
with state such as dictionaries of character pronunciations or recent 
user input, and delivers multiple characters to the application at once.

Google's GBoard keyboard on Android devices, and Apple's keyboard for 
iOS devices, have some degree of word prediction and spelling 
correction. In that respect they partly use the input method editor 
model in addition to the functional keyboard layout model.

By the way, there are other models of text entry. A chorded keyboard[5] 
is a third model. It lets the user press multiple keys at once, and 
reads the set of keys pressed at the moment the user releases the keys. 
It basically ignores the action of the user pressing keys. This is in 
contrast to conventional keyboards, which read the keys at the moment 
the users presses them.

You write:

> Entering the correct domain requires entering 星巴克, changing keyboard 
> layout to get latin letters, entering the ASCII dot, changing keyboard 
> layout back, then entering 商标. Bothersome. You will not be surprised 
> to learn that forgetting to switch layout is a common mistake.

That very model of pressing keys to "enter" characters, pressing keys to 
change keyboard layout (i.e. mode) , and pressing keyboard to get a dot, 
is framed by the functional keyboard layout model. In an input method 
editor model, it would be completely normal to expect the editor to 
accept user input of "星巴克。商标" (with a Chinese dot) and, if the context 
demands it, deliver the corrected text of "星巴克.商标" (with an ASCII dot), 
to the application. In other words, it is reasonable for the user to not 
do the mode change, and to expect an editor to deliver characters as if 
the mode did change.

So, to get useful answers to your question, you might want to focus on 
languages and systems which use a functional keyboard layout, because 
languages and systems which use input method editors might not 
experience the obstacle which interests you.

Best regards,

     —Jim DeLaHunt

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Functional_layouts>
[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Shift_key>
[3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Dead_keys>
[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_method>
[5] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard>

On 2023-09-24 23:13, Jiankang Yao via UA-EAI wrote:
> I think that your decribed senario is the common senario Chinese users 
> commonly encounter.
>
> Another method is to copy and paste it.
>
> BTW, many Chinese input methods have Associative input method. You can 
> only input some initial letters and get the whole Chinese characters.
> to input 星巴克, you just need to input xbk.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jiankang Yao
>
>     *From:* Arnt Gulbrandsen via UA-EAI <mailto:ua-eai at icann.org>
>     *Date:* 2023-09-19 22:21
>     *To:* ua-tech at icann.org; ua-eai at icann.org
>     *Subject:* [UA-EAI] A request concerning entering domain names
>
>     Hi,
>
>     When I enter a domain name such as icann.org, I just press nine
>     keys in sequence, i, c and so on. Five keys for icann, then one
>     for the dot, then three for org.
>
>     When a Chinese user enters a Chinese domain in a similarly simple
>     way, the result may be 星巴克。商标, while the correct result would be
>     星巴克.商标(note the different dots). Entering the correct domain
>     requires entering 星巴克, changing keyboard layout to get latin
>     letters, entering the ASCII dot, changing keyboard layout back,
>     then entering 商标. Bothersome. You will not be surprised to learn
>     that forgetting to switch layout is a common mistake.
>
>     I’d like to know which other locales have a similar problem, and
>     for that I want to ask a favour.
>
>     There are many people here who use different keyboard input
>     methods. If your keyboard input method has a similar problem, can
>     you send me the dot and an example domain (which does not need to
>     exist, something like example.yourtld would do)? Offlist please.
>     That is to arnt.gulbrandsen at icann.org.
>
>     If a keyboard method uses non-latin letters but includes the ASCII
>     full stop, I’m interested in that too. Always heartening to know
>     when something is not buggy.
>
>     -- 
>
>     Arnt Gulbrandsen
>
>     UA Technology Sr. Manager, ICANN
>
>     +32 492 374706
>
>
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-- 
     --Jim DeLaHunt,jdlh at jdlh.com      http://blog.jdlh.com/  (http://jdlh.com/)
       multilingual websites consultant, Vancouver, Canada
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