Monday, December 24, 2012

GeezIME on release of Windows 8

GeezIME & Windows 8

It looks as though Microsoft has finally realised that Tigrinya as a language is worth being part of the Windows operating system. The recently released Windows 8 is shipping with language packs of both Eritrean and Ethiopian Tigrinya, in addition to Amharic which has been available since Windows Vista and 7. Both the languages Tigrinya and Amharic use the Geez script as a writing system. The bottom line of this is Windows 8 users can now change the language of their system to Tigrinya and will also be able to type Tigrinya texts using the built in input method editor without use of additional software, unlike in earlier versions of the operating system.
So what does this mean to Geez input method vendors like us?

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Yet another Geez application...

Here is a piece of software that will allow you to write and edit Geez texts in all Java aware platforms, Windows, Linux, Mac etc.

It is a self contained simple text editor, with builtin Geez Input Method and a transliteration feature. The application requires Java 1.6 or above to be installed in the system. Download Yaga and try it.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Input Confirmation Feature in GeezIME

How to write ክወስድ and ኣርኣያ!
Fitsum Gaim

For languages like Tigrinya and Geez which consist of a few hundred characters in their writing system, it is not possible to assign a unique key on the standard keyboard for each letter of the language. Therefore building an input method editor for such languages requires coming up with a scheme that should pass this limitation, the scheme should take into consideration many qualities from requiring fewer keystrokes, to providing an easy-to-learn key combination.
One such popular scheme used by many input method editors is the phonetic mapping of the English letters to the desired language.
Able GeezIME follows the phonetic mapping scheme, along with some interesting features like input confirmation.