------------------
A. Introduction:

XCIN is an XIM (X Input Method) server which is widely used in Taiwan to
perform Chinese input under X Window system. It is originally developed
by Edward Der-Hua Liu (Oct. 1994) and many other programmers in early 
days; while now it is supported by the XCIN Project (http://xcin.linux.org.tw). 

The current release of XCIN is xcin-2.5 series (developed during 1999-2000), 
which makes a big jump from the old releases (e.g., xcin-2.3 and older 
versions). The whole program structer is redesigned, the various input 
methods are modulized, the custumization is more flexible, and the core 
system is more stable and solid. The XIM protocol is also supported starting 
from this series (although several XIM patches for old versions have already 
appeared before xcin-2.5). The XIM supports is not completed yet, and is 
still under development and improvement.

The goal of XCIN is to serve as a general Input Method server for various
kinds of people, not only for people in Taiwan (who mainly use the Big5 
encoding), but also for people in MainLand China (who mainly use the GB 
encoding). So we have tried to design it as much independent of the encoding 
as possible. We also hope that the supports of XIM protocol can help to 
solve the long standing Chinese-input problem completely.

Features of xcin-2.5 includes:

1. "rcfile" configuration file:

   XCIN has its own configuration file, which is formatted in Lisp/Scheme
   language. This configuration file offers a wide flexibility to customize
   the Chinese input enviroment.

2. Support XIM and I18N/locale architecture:

   XIM is the international input method protocol defined by X. With this
   support, we hope that people can input Chinese into most of the X Window
   applications.

   Furthermore, XCIN is also a completed I18N program, which means we are
   trying to make it as independent of the character set encoding as possible.
   This work is still under working. With this consideration we hope that
   XCIN could be a "universal" input method server for many other languages.

3. IM module dynamic loading:

   All of the input method are modulized and can be dynamically loaded in
   most of the supported platforms. Currently xcin contains the following
   IM modules:

   a. zh_hex: Input Chinese using encoding (Hex) number.

   b. gen_inp: This is the table driven IM module, which can use a keystroke
	       to character mapping table (called .cin file) to simulate 
	       many kinds of input methods. It also provides comprehensive
	       configurable options for customization.

   c. bimsphone: This is an intellegent character guessing IM module. It is
		 based on the pronunciation input and pick out the correct
		 character from a set of candidates according to the phrase
		 or syntax already input.

4. Many platform support:

   In theory, xcin-2.5 could run on any I18N/locale based, with X11R6 UNIX
   systems. Up to now it is successfully tested in the following platforms:

   a. GNU/Linux / GCC:  i386, Alpha (using glibc-2.1.x and above)

   b. FreeBSD / GCC:  i386  (FreeBSD-4.0 / with ELF support)

   c. NetBSD / GCC:  i386

   d. HP-UX / ANSI-C compiler:  PA-RISC 32-bits

   For the support and porting to Solaris and OpenBSD is under progress
   and needs more tests and feedbacks.

Any suggestion or feedback are welcomed. You can contact the XCIN Project
Team through the xcin mailing-list: xcin@linux.org.tw.


------------------
B. History:

1. 1994/10/25, Edward Der-Hua Liu announced the first version of xcin in
   tw.bbs.comp.linux news group. At that time the package is called 
   "big5-pack.tgz", which contains xcin and crxvt programs. The xcin part
   only contains the input method program, and the input method tables and
   the Chinese fonts should be converted from the data of the Eten Chinese 
   system.

2. 1997/03, Tung-Han Hsieh <thhsieh@linux.org.tw> took care of the 
   maintainance. At that time the main progress is to modify the Makefile
   such that xcin could be as an independent UNIX package as possible,
   instead of depending on the Eten Chinese system.

3. 1997/03/10, <vvvv.bbs@bbs.cis.nctu.edu.tw> announced his first patch of
   xcin for the Boshiamy input method (http://www.liu.com.tw): "xcinbosh.tgz". 
   From that time he introduced many convenient input method functions, but
   most of them are for Boshiamy input method.

4. Many and many people contributed to xcin, and the xcin source code became
   dirty and difficult to maintain. Therefore, we decide to redesign xcin
   with the hope to fix all the problems. The maintainance of old series of 
   xcin continuoused until 1999/04 the release of xcin-2.3.04-3. After that,
   this work stoped.

5. A new design of xcin began in 1998/1999. At that time the main contributors
   includes:

   a. Kao, Chia-liang: Original design of xcin module structer.

   b. Hsiao, Yung-Ching: Introduce XIM server design, Xi18n/locale programming
      concept, and xcin rcfile reading system "siod lib".

   c. Chuang, Ming-Che: Suggestion and useful discussion to locale/I18N/
      XIM/rcfile reading system.

   d. Hsiao, Pai-Hsiang: Introduce libtabe such that xcin has the ZhuYin
      input method with the ability to do intellegent character selection
      (libtabe).

   e. Cheng, Yuan-Chung: Help to estabilish the completed I18N/zh_TW.Big5
      locale environment, to provide a test and development platform for xcin.

   In the beginning, the web-site of xcin is maintained by Cd Chen. In 1998/06
   the project web-site was moved to the Computing Center of Acamedia Sinica
   (http://www.sinica.edu.tw) and maintained by Yuan, Tein Horng and his
   colleges.

6. 1999/06/21 xcin-2.5.0 was announced. In this release the basic module
   structer, XIM server, and zh_hex, gen_inp, and bimsphone IM modules are
   implemented.

7. 1999/08/24 xcin-2.5.1 was announced.

8. 2000/10/15 xcin-2.5.2 was announced.


------------------
C. What's New (Please refer to Changes document for details):

(version: xcin-2.5.3-pre1, needs libtabe-0.2.2 and above):

1. Improvement for bimsphone module:
   a. Now bimsphone supports 3 input modes:

      bimsphone mode:  traditional intellegent character selection.
      bimssimple mode: no intellegent character selection function, but
		       provides many ZuYin input method specific function
		       which does not appear in gen_inp module.
      bimspinyin mode: pinyin intellegent character selection.

   b. New options: AUTO_SELECTION, NSELKEY, SPACE_SELECTION, and AUTO_UPCHAR
      are added into xcinrc configuration file.

   c. The composed characters inside xcin buffer are labeled by underline
      to show each phrase.

   d. We can enter phrase selection or character selection by pressing 
      Up/Down key.

   e. Support the Eten 26 keymap.

2. Improvement for gen_inp module:
   Add DISABLE_SEL_LIST & KEYSTROKE_REMAP options into xcinrc to support 
   Array30 input method.  Also support "gen_inp_default" xcinrc global 
   setting.

3. Improvement for zh_hex module:
   Add INP_CNAME_<encoding name> option into xcinrc to support the INP_CNAME 
   definition for many encodings.

4. Improvement for qphrase:
   The configuration in default.phr now provide 4 sections: %trigger, %shift, 
   %ctrl, and %alt. Also in xcinrc a new option "MOD_PHR" are provided in
   many IM modules to control the 4 qphrase modes mentioned above.

5. Improvement for cin2tab & .cin table:
   a. Add bimscin compiling mode for cin2tab, to compile the needed data for
      bimsphone module, bimspinyin mode. Also a new bims_pinyin.cin table is
      added.

   b. Move all the .cin tables to encoding directories, where big5/big5hkscs
      share the same set of .cin tables in big5/ directory, while gb2312/gbk 
      share the same set of those in gb/ directory. The compiled .tab table
      are installed in the directory according to their actual encoding. There
      are several new .cin tables added.

   c. Add command line options: -l <encoding/LC_CTYPE>, -h, -o .... etc into
      cin2tab.

   d. cin2tab gencin: It can accept hex codes instead of the character string
      in the %chardef and %keyname sections. If there are characters outside
      the defined encoding range, it will just ignore them instead of stoping
      with error messages.

6. Changes in xcinrc:
   a. Add DISABLE_WM_CTRL, KEEP_POSITION_ON and DIFF_BEEP options.

   b. Support "<IM name>@<encoding>" format for xcinrc IM module setting.

7. Changes in IM module API:
   a. inpinfo_t new items added: lcch_grouping, mcch_grouping, 
      suggest_skeystroke, zh_ascii, and gui_request.

   b. module_t: add new function terminate().

   c. IM module static linking is now supported.

8. Improvement for GUI system:
   a. New design for winlist_t to support multiple window creation for xcin.

   b. Add new window class: OverTheSpot, and gui_request/menusel.

   c. Add gui_main2 window, which can be controlled by START_MAINWIN2 and
      MAINWIN2_GEOMETRY options.

9. Improvement for XIM system:
   a. Add OverTheSpot input style support. The utility testprog is also
      modified to support OverTheSpot. Also the corresponding xcinrc options
      are added.

   b. get_ic_value(): add the handler for XNPreeditState request.

   c. IMdkit is modified to support XIM_SYNC sending from XIM server side.

   d. XCIN now will send XIM_SYNC signal to the connecting client before
      quiting, to insure that the connection will be properly shutdown.

10. Add IMC system:
    a. Saparate the input method related data structer from the IC structer
       and put them into IM_Context_t structer. So that the IC will only
       handle the XIC requests, while the operation of IM modules are 
       managed by IMC.

    b. New option SINGLE_IM_CONTEXT is added in xcinrc.

11. New porting to HP-UX + ANSI C compiler platform.

12. Many bug fixing and documentation updating.


------------------
D. Contents of the package:

1. xcin (installed in $(prefix)/bin/):
   main xcin input method server program.

2. cin2tab (installed in $(prefix)/bin/):
   input method table .cin ==> .tab converting program.

3. xcinrc (installed in $(prefix)/etc/):
   xcin common configuration file.

4. IM modules (installed in $(XCIN_DIR)/, default is $(prefix)/lib/xcin/):
   dynamical loadable IM module, includes zh_hex.so, gen_inp.so, bimsphone.so.

   ps. In HP-UX platform, the dynamic loaded module feature is not supported
       yet, so these modules are static linked with xcin main program. So in
       this directory there are no these files.

5. tab files (installed in $(XCIN_DIR)/tab/$(ENCODING)/):
   Most of them are data files for gen_inp module. They are installed in
   different sub-directories according to their encodings:

   $(BIG5)/:
	a. sys.tab:		big5 encoding information.
	b. array30.tab:		Array 30 input method.
	c. cj.tab:		ChangJei input method.
	d. phone.tab:		ZhuYin input method.
	e. pinyin.tab:		PinYin input method.
	f. pinyin0.tab:		PinYin input method (no tone).
	g. simplex.tab:		Simple input method.
	h. bims_pinyin.tab:	The ZhuYin-PinYin mapping table for bimspinyin.
	i. jyutping.tab:	Jyut-Pinyin input method.
	j. jyutping0.tab:	Jyut-Pinyin input method (no tone).
	k. telecode.tab:	Telephony code input method.
	l. default.phr:		Data for qphrase.

   $(BIG5HKSCS)/:
	a. sys.tab:		big5hkscs encoding information.
	b. cj.tab:		ChangJei input method.
	c. default.phr:		Data for qphrase.

   $(GB2312)/:
	a. sys.tab:		gb2312 encoding information.
	b. jtcj_gb.tab:		ChangJei input method.
	c. pinyin.tab:		PinYin input method.
	d. phonegb2.tab:	ZhuYin input method.
	e. shuangpin.tab:	ShuangPin input method.
	f. wubizixing.tab:	WuBiz input method.
	g. default.phr:		Data for qphrase.

   $(GBK)/:
	a. sys.tab:		gbk encoding information.
	b. default.phr:		Data for qphrase.

   Note: The encoding name varies for different platforms, as listed in
	 the following:

   GNU/Linux:   $(BIG5):	big5
		$(BIG5HKSCS):	big5hkscs
		$(GB2312):	gb2312
		$(GBK):		gbk

   FreeBSD:	$(BIG5):	big5
		$(GB2312):	euc

   NetBSD:	$(BIG5):	big5
		$(GB2312):	euccn

   HP-UX:	$(BIG5):	big5
		$(BIG5HKSCS):	hkbig5
		$(GB2312):	hp15cn

6. testprog (source in xcin-2.5/src/util/testprog/):
   This is a simple Xi18n test program, which is independent of the xcin
   system. It is used to test that if your system is i18n ready or not,
   and to test the character inputs from xcin. It will not be installed
   to any where when make install.

7. Documentations (in xcin-2.5/doc/).


------------------
E. Installation and test:

Because xcin-2.5 is very different from the old versions of xcin, you have
to read the following documents carefully before you install and use it:

1. SETUP:  xcin-2.5 installation guide.

2. UserGuide:  Introduction to the usage of xcin-2.5 and several XIM clients.

3. Usage and modules/*:  The usages of xcin-2.5 and IM modules.

4. FAQ:  Frequently Asked Questions.

5. Bugs:  Problems of xcin-2.5.

6. Todo:  The future plan.

If you want to prepare your .cin input method table, or to convert the old
.cin sytle to the new style, please refer to:

7. Cin:  Format of .cin table and the usage of cin2tab.

For the copyright and license of xcin-2.5, please refer to:

8. CopyRight:  xcin license.

9. COPYING:  GNU General Public License 
   (includes English original and Big5 translation)

If you are interested in the internal implementation of xcin and the 
programming of IM modules, please refer to:

10. internal/*:  xcin implementation and module structers.

If you need the English translated documents, please refer to:

11. En/*:  English translation of xcin documentations (partial).


Any suggestions and comments are welcome and appreciated.


Tung-Han Hsieh  <thhsieh@linux.org.tw>
Physics Department of National Taiwan University, R.O.C.
XCIN Team.  <mailing-list:  xcin@linux.org.tw>
            <www:           http://xcin.linux.org.tw>
            <ftp:           ftp://xcin.linux.org.tw/pub/xcin>

