How to make keyboard Input into unicode/japanese characters?

Question

I have the following functions

 def game_test_write_vocabularuy():
        game_test = True    
        active = False
        text_hiragana = ''
    
        while game_test == True:
    
            for event in pygame.event.get():
                if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                    terminate()
                if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
                    if active == True:
                        if event.key == pygame.K_BACKSPACE:
                            text_hiragana = text_hiragana[:-1]
                        else:
                            text_hiragana += event.unicode
                if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                    if input_rectangle.collidepoint(event.pos):
                        active = True
                    else:
                        active = False
    

    
            game_display.fill(white)
        
            if active:
                pygame.draw.rect(game_display,gray,input_rectangle,2)
            else:
                pygame.draw.rect(game_display, red, input_rectangle, 2)
            textFunc(FontJapoMedium,text_hiragana,black,input_rectangle[0] + 5,input_rectangle[1] + 5 ,False)
    
    
            Clock.tick(FPS)
            pygame.display.update()

Basically, it allows me to type something and it will get rendered on the sreen. Thing is, when I turn the japanese keyboard on and I start typing, it doesnt display the japanese text. Rather, it simply displays the roman letters

For example, in my keyboard D = し, however when I press the D key, instead of し, nothing is rendered; as if the event isnt registered What should I do?

Note- The font is not the problem

Answer 1

I solved it like this:

I just used a dictionary to convert the characters to hiragana

 Table = {
#A Column
'a':'あ',
'ka':'か',
'ga':'が',
'sa':'さ',
'za':'ざ',
'ta':'た',
'da':'だ',
'na':'な',
'ha':'は',
'ba':'ば',
'pa':'ぱ',
'ma':'ま',
'ya':'や',
'ra':'ら',
'wa':'わ',

#I Column
'i':'い',
'ki':'き',
'gi':'ぎ',
'shi':'し',
'ji':'じ',
'chi':'ち',
'ni':'に',
'hi':'ひ',
'bi':'び',
'pi':'ぴ',
'mi':'み',
'ri':'り',

#U Column
'u':'う',
'ku':'く',
'gu':'ぐ',
'su':'す',
'zu':'ず',
'tsu':'つ',
'nu':'ぬ',
'fu':'ふ',
'bu':'ぶ',
'pu':'ぷ',
'mu':'む',
'ru':'る',
'yu':'ゆ',

#E Column
'e':'え',
'ke':'け',
'ge':'げ',
'se':'せ',
'ze':'ぜ',
'te':'て',
'de':'で',
'ne':'ね',
'he':'へ',
'be':'べ',
'pe':'ぺ',
'me':'め',
're':'れ',

#O Column
'o':'お',
'ko':'こ',
'go':'ご',
'so':'そ',
'zo':'ぞ',
'to':'と',
'do':'ど',
'no':'の',
'ho':'ほ',
'bo':'ぼ',
'po':'ぽ',
'mo':'も',
'yo':'よ',
'ro':'ろ',
'wo':'を',

#N sound
'nn':'ん',

#Characters with 3 sounds that use the small Y characters
'kya':'きゃ',
'kyu':'きゅ',
'kyo':'きょ',

'sha':'しゃ',
'shu':'しゅ',
'sho':'しょ',

'cha':'ちゃ',
'chu':'ちゅ',
'cho':'ちょ',

'nya':'にゃ',
'nyu':'にゅ',
'nyo':'にょ',

'hya':'ひゃ',
'hyu':'ひゅ',
'hyo':'ひょ',

'mya':'みゃ',
'myu':'みゅ',
'myo':'みょ',

'rya':'りゃ',
'ryu':'りゅ',
'ryo':'りょ',

'gya':'ぎゃ',
'gyu':'ぎゅ',
'gyo':'ぎょ',

'ja':'じゃ',
'ju':'じゅ',
'jo':'じょ',

'bya':'びゃ',
'byu':'びゅ',
'byo':'びょ',

'pya':'ぴゃ',
'pyu':'ぴゅ',
'pyo':'ぴょ',

#Weird characters rarely used
'di':'ぢ',
'du':'づ',

#Small Tsu
'kk':'っ',
'ss':'っ',
'tt':'っ',
'hh':'っ',
'mm':'っ',
'yy':'っ',
'rr':'っ',
'ww':'っ',
'gg':'っ',
'zz':'っ',
'dd':'っ',
'bb':'っ',
'pp':'っ',

}

Then I used the following functions

   def deleteText(self):
    if len(self.text) > 0:
        self.textoChico = self.textoChico[:-1]
    else:
        self.texto = self.texto[:-1]

def writeText(self):
    if len(self.text) > 3:
        self.text = ""
    if self.text in Table :
        self.texto += Table [self.text]
        self.text = ''

Answer 2

I think it comes down to your input method. Using "Anthy" IBus input on Linux PyGame works fine for inputting Hiragana text.

I suspect your keyboard is sending Latin characters, with a software driver converting it to Hiragana (etc.) but PyGame is handling the keyboard at a lower level, so is receiving the raw keypress rather than the conversion.

Maybe you can do a lookup table to convert inputted Romaji to Hiragana, but I guess this defeats the purpose of having the correct keyboard. Does the keyboard work as-desired in other applications?

"Umeboshi Font" from http://font.xxenxx.net/umeboshifont.html

Reference Code:

import pygame

# Window size
WINDOW_WIDTH    = 600
WINDOW_HEIGHT   = 100
WINDOW_SURFACE  = pygame.HWSURFACE|pygame.DOUBLEBUF|pygame.RESIZABLE

DARK_BLUE = (   3,   5,  54 )
WHITE     = ( 255, 255, 250 )


### initialisation
pygame.init()
pygame.mixer.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode( ( WINDOW_WIDTH, WINDOW_HEIGHT ), WINDOW_SURFACE )
pygame.display.set_caption("Hiragana Test")

### For the simple text handling
#font     = pygame.font.SysFont( None, 16 )
font     = pygame.font.Font( 'umeboshi.ttf', 16 )
text      = ''
text_surf = font.render( text, True, WHITE )

### Main Loop
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
done = False
while not done:

    # Handle user-input
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if ( event.type == pygame.QUIT ):
            done = True
        elif ( event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONUP ):
            # On mouse-click
            pass
        elif ( event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN ):
            if ( event.key == pygame.K_BACKSPACE ):
                text = text[:-1]
            else:
                text = text + event.unicode
            #print( "TEXT: [%s]" % ( text ) )
            text_surf = font.render( text, True, WHITE )

    # Update the window, but not more than 60fps
    window.fill( DARK_BLUE )
    window.blit( text_surf, ( 10, WINDOW_HEIGHT//2 ) )
    pygame.display.flip()

    # Clamp FPS
    clock.tick_busy_loop(60)


pygame.quit()