Sogou just launched a cloud pinyin input application enabling anyone to type Chinese inside browsers without any software installations.
Sogou Cloud Pinyin input is based on JavaScript technology, Ajax, and cloud technology. Without any installation, one can input Chinese on any operation systems. It is compatible with all major browsers (IE, Sogou browser, Firefox).
Simply go to this page and then drag the icon (as the one shown above) to your status bar; click on it whenever you need Chinese input. The speed is not perfect, slower than desktop applications. And, it doesn’t work well in email when I tested.
This is a very innovative product from Sohu (whose search product is called Sogou if you don’t know) and it’ll further its Pinyin Input market share by penetrating to Mac and Linux users.
I tried it out on my FF, & here are the instructions.
1. Drag the bookmarklet to the bookmark toolbar (at the TOP of the browser, typically located below the menu bar & navigation toolbar).
2. Click to activate. It cues up a "floating" status bar at the bottom right of the browser. You can subsequent drag the latter to position anywhere on your screen, but it always reverts to the original spot upon activation.
3. The status bar itself has 4 toggle buttons. From left to right (after the orange "S" logo): ?/? to input pinyin/English; full/crescent moon to input as full-width/half-width fonts; punctuations to input in Chinese/European styles; & "X" to close the status bar.
Quite handy if you wanna upgrade to FF 3.5.x like me, yet the Fireinput addon remains stuck in 3.0.x.