Pinyintones
A small utility to easily input the unicode characters for vowels with chinese (mandarin) tones. Tested with Windows XP.
Usage
When the pinyintones software starts it creates an icon in the taskbar
window. In order to input the four different type of tones in pinyin
each tone will be associated with a hotkey. When the hotkey is
pressed, the icon changes to the type of tone this hotkey
represents. Next you can press any vowel you wish to add the tone
to. For example, to write 
you need to
press the hotkey for the forth tone and then press 'a'.
Pinyintones is running
The different icons pinyintones will use. From left to right: Enabled, first tone,
second tone, third tone, forth tone and disabled state.
Options dialog: Define the hotkeys to be used here.
Download
The software is freeware, you may freely redistribute the archive. It
is distributed "AS IS", use at own risk.
Installation
Unpack the archive. Create a shortcut from pinyintones.exe to the Startup folder.
Known bugs/limitations
-
Pinyintones does not work if you run the IME pinyin input
software from Beijing Thunisoft Co.
(www.thunisoft.com)
http://www.thunisoft.com/unispim/overview.shtml - Please report other bugs to me.
The software has been developed by Fredrik Sundström. Send questions
and suggestions to me, email me at frocke at ludd.luth.se