language bar problems

Ok, I seem to have a very buggy language bar. I want to make it like the one at home so I can tell it when I want to type in Japanese, but this one is really buggy. It keeps going to English or disappears, and I can't seem to get it to show the buttons that let me type in Japanese. The one at home would do that occasionally but the extra buttons would come back if I clicked the desktop or rebooted if that didn't work. I haven't gotten it to work on this computer at all. Any suggestions?

btw, I am unfortunately using WinXP. If you need any more info, tell me what you need and I'll see if I can find that out.

Make sure you actually have a Japanese Keyboard layout installed in Regional and Language options (you'll also need Far Eastern language support installed for it to work) - you'll want the Microsoft IME Standard 2002 one :p

Yes, I see that and picked the keyboard you wanted. Right now, if it's not flashing back to English, it says JP, ?, CAPS, KANA, the restore symbol, and a down arrow. It should show other buttons, but I already have "show additional icons" checked.

Right click on the taskbar, uncheck "lock taskbar", there should now be a little vertical bar left of the input language selection, which you can drag leftwards to reveal the extra icons.

I'm not sure I get the problem x.x

Do you mean it switches to English in the middle of your typing? Make sure you haven't hit shift+tab, which toggles between languages. Mine likes to stay in one language in one window and switch to another one in another window, which gets annoying xD

No, it doesn't switch while I'm typing. It switches when I go between windows. But my main problem is I'm not able to type in Japanese. Like, even if the language bar is in Japanese, it doesn't give me the buttons to type in Japanese and do the conversions from like hiragana to kanji and stuff. I have extra buttons on, so it's not that, even though I think that's supposed to get the buttons like "input mode" to show up. If I turn it off the language bar goes invisible.

Did you do what I said? :p

Just did what you said, and that didn't work.

Could you take a screenshot? Go to an app you want to type japanese in (ex: word) then take a screenshot once you've selected Japanese input. If needed, set the task bar properties so that it doesn't hide.

I'm sure staying within the browser to get the screenshot would work too - I have no problem with typing in 日本語 in Firefox for example :p

Ok, I'll do that as soon as I get back on that computer. But basically what it looks like, if it lets me select Japanese (sometimes it sticks on English, but I don't think it does in Firefox), it just says JP and the help icon, plus the caps and kana buttons, and the down arrow. There are no buttons that let me type in Japanese, even though there should be, right?

When you switch from whatever to Japanese, the toolbar should look like this:


Click on the "A" (to the right), and select hiragana, it should look like this (maybe with the little keyboard icon too):


Once you have that, you type japanese by typing the syllabs, eg, typing "k a" will input か, typing "nihongo" then pressing space will input　日本語.

Well, the problem is I don't see the A button. I see the JP button but not the A button. I'll be back on that computer in a bit, and I'll take a pic and show you.

EDIT: Ok here's a picture of my language bar.

http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...anguagebar.jpg

Click on "kana", it should display a list, then screenshot that if you can.

No, that doesn't display a list. It just lets katakana come out, but not like if I had the A button. I can click on the down button, though.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i3...nguagebar2.jpg

On that menu that appears, go to settings. It's a bit slow do do it this way, but it seems we have different versions of the IME/natural input, so maybe I'll figure out what I have installed that you don't.