Engnese

简体中文

Engnese is an Obsidian desktop plugin for English-first pinyin completion.

It allows users to keep typing English letters in the editor while treating the current token as pinyin in the background. When a candidate is accepted, the already inserted English token is replaced in place with Chinese text.

What It Does

• Keeps the normal English typing flow and avoids inline preedit.
• Reads local Rime .dict.yaml dictionaries, including import_tables.
• Falls back to the longest valid prefix when a full pinyin stream has no direct match.
• Supports configurable candidate shortcuts and paging.
• Supports optional double-space to accept the first candidate.
• Avoids triggering inside fenced code blocks, inline code, and math contexts.

Examples

• woaini -> 我爱你
• ni + double-space -> 你
• chunfengyichui -> select 春风, then continue with yichui

If a full-token match does not exist, Engnese uses the longest available prefix and leaves the remaining suffix in the editor so the next completion cycle can continue from there.

Requirements

• Obsidian desktop
• A local Rime dictionary file
• Node.js and npm if building from source

The plugin is desktop-only because it reads dictionaries from the local filesystem.

Install From Source

git clone https://github.com/xXxGeorge/obsidian-engnese.git
cd obsidian-engnese
npm install
npm run build

Copy the build output into:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/engnese/

Required files:

• manifest.json
• main.js
• styles.css

Then enable Engnese in Obsidian Community Plugins.

Development

Run the watcher:

npm run dev

Build a production bundle:

npm run build

The plugin ID is engnese, so the target plugin directory should also be named engnese.

Dictionary Path

Default path:

~/Library/Rime/rime_ice.dict.yaml

If path expansion causes issues, use an absolute path such as:

/Users/<user>/Library/Rime/rime_ice.dict.yaml

Settings

General

• Enable plugin: turn Engnese on or off
• Rime dictionary path: main dictionary entry file
• Rebuild dictionary index: re-parse the configured dictionary and refresh the in-memory index

Candidate behavior

• Double Space selects first candidate
• Double Space timeout
• Keep space after Double Space selection

Selection shortcuts

• Selection keys: candidate 1
• Select candidate 2
• Select candidate 3
• Select candidate 4
• Select candidate 5
• Previous page
• Next page

Default shortcuts:

• Tab: candidate 1
• Ctrl-;: candidate 2
• Ctrl-': candidate 3
• Ctrl-/: candidate 4
• Ctrl-[: candidate 5
• Ctrl-,: previous page
• Ctrl-.: next page

In some environments, Ctrl-[ is interpreted as Escape. If that happens, remap Select candidate 5 in plugin settings.

Context guards

• Disable in code blocks
• Disable in inline code
• Disable in math

Limitations

• The dictionary index is currently kept in memory only and is rebuilt on demand.
• Candidate ranking is dictionary-weight based with a few simple heuristics; there is no adaptive learning yet.
• The plugin currently targets desktop usage only.

Troubleshooting

• Dictionary load error: verify the configured path and try an absolute path.
• Dictionary changed but results did not update: click Rebuild dictionary index.
• Ctrl-[ behaves like Escape: remap candidate 5 to another shortcut.
• Double-space keeps a trailing space unexpectedly: disable Keep space after Double Space selection.

License

This project is licensed under MIT. See LICENSE.