Re: [Indic-computing-devel] Mahiti.ORG's indic language input requirements

[sunil <su...@in...>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Guntupalli Karunakar <kar...@fr...>
>  Is (1) intended to be done remotely, I mean something like a web
> based content development ?
Yes, exactly! Now you know where we are coming from. So we are not sure 
what platform or browser the client is using.

> > 1. http://www.hexidec.com/ekit.php. 
>   This seems to be  a good one.

This is using Java 2. But it is very comprehensive work including 
internationalization. I guess this is where we will start. 
Also thanks for the links on
1. Java Input Method Engine from National University of Singapore. This 
is an alternative starting point if we want to be Java 1.0 compliant. 
What do other members on this list feel. Should we go with Java 1.2 or 
should we be backward compatible with older browser with older JVMs.
2. Java Input Method Framework from Sun.com. 
3. http://ibm.nsysu.edu.tw/INET98/5f/5f_2.htm -> this is giving me a 404

Another starting point would be the 'Java Input Method Engine'  developed 
by the 

> we can automate the translation process a bit.  Does running your app,
> on top of indix or iitm X work ? 

Thanks for all the details on the translation project. You have my every 
good wish. I can imagine how difficult the task would be. W.r.t to our 
app I did not try it yet on indix or iitm X. Since I am focussing on a 
web interface I guess I will focus on the Java applet solution within the 
browser. However we will continue to test X-interfaces. I cannot promise 
to do any direct work in this area because we have no X competence. I 
don't understand most of Koshy's evaluation mails. But the importance of 
this work does not escape me especially for users at a village level 
using applications such as Open Office.


-----Original Message-----
From: "Tapan S. Parikh" <ta...@ya...>
> In reality if I wanted to be as clean as possible I should store all
> ISCII text in binary fields, since the DBMS / Driver doesnt seem like 
it is meant

Thanks for explaining the problem you faced with JDBC drivers for MS 
Access and MS SQL Server.  I guess I will be requiring a similar work 
arounds shortly. 

Please explain why you have decided to store data in ISCII format in the 
RDBMS. Why not Unicode? I agree with you on Binary fields for we would 
not be able to sort, search and index. 

We are using Mithi.com's India Interactive [Software Development Toolkit] 
for one of our projects. We will be storing UNICODE data in MySQL. Will 
report back later with our experience with search, sort and index - for 
Hindi, Gurmukhi and Telegu.

-----Original Message-----
> From: ni...@vi...

> We are now entering into designing phase, The major problem we phased
> during our r&d is that a JApplet can only run with java1.2 compatible
> web browser.

I guess that is OK. But it means a huge download for both Mozilla and 
MSIE.
 
> While technically it is possible to use the Swing components in any
> Java 1.1-based browser, realistically is another story. The JAR file of
> Swing classes is approximately 2 MB, which would be required to be
> downloaded every time a user needed to run the applet. Unless you
> required your users to manually install the classes locally, this isn't
> usually a realistic option. The best alternative is to have your users
> install the Java Plug-in through html code.

The white paper from the 'National University of Singapore' says that AWT 
widgets are peer components and rely on the host platforms widget 
functionality. So should we be going with Swing since they are 
independent of the host platform. But what can we do about Nitin's 
concern w.r.t the download? Whether we choose to go with Plugins or 
Classes. If the big download is non-negotiable then I guess we will have 
to live with it.

Let me run you through the architecture of the Input method 

- 2 dimensional lookup array of Strings [to map user keystrokes to 
corresponding character codes]
Or alternatively Tree based implementation of the same
- Java bitmap fonts or Unicode fonts [Using fonts installed on the Host 
platform]
- Widgets Package
- Font Interface Package

Thanks,

Sunil