Re: [Indic-computing-users] [LAP] font design references (fwd)

[LinuxLingam <lin...@bh...>]

On Wednesday 16 October 2002 05:01 pm, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja wrote:

> Font and keyboard layout have got nothing to do with each
> other. The job of the keyboard driver is to interpret the
> keystrokes and send the appropriate ASCII/Unicode code to the
> OS. It is the job of the rendering engine to use the font and
> display the text. Hence discussions about keyboard layouts
> does not fit into the discussions about fonts.

what you state is correct. unfortunately, the keyboard layout is important, 
since i) students and the population at large still does not know even if a 
standard keyboard layout exists. 2) shusha works on the english qwerty 
displaying indian equivalent, 3) lack of standards leads to several problems. 
4) in any case, it is important for students and all others to know, that the 
inscript keyboard exists, and that in a short time, they can learn how to 
type, and even touch type, on an english qwerty keyboard, for their indian 
languages.
i have personally spent time in schools giving a free talk on indian language 
coding and type coding, and demoed how hindi and english work simultaneously 
under windoze xp. amazingly, not a single person in the audience knew till 
that time, that such a thing exists and that it works this way....

> In Kannada we have coined the word "aksharashaili" (taken from
> Samskrit) for font.

thanks for that term. will remember to use it more often.

LL