Re: Transliterated Arabic Input Method was Re: Arabize 0.1

[Mohammad DAMT <md at mt dot web dot id>]

On Kam, 2004-03-25 at 17:45, Mohammed Sameer wrote:
> I don't think that turning it to an input method is the best idea ;)
> I don't know how input methods work, but we may need to interprete 2
> characters and turn them into 1 arabic letter, I don't think this'll
> be possible with input methods.

Japanese input method (I tried with kinput) works like this:

we type "k" the latin "k" character comes out
we type "a" (after k) then the japanese letter "ka" shows up replacing
the latin "k" character
if we press space, we can switch the letter "ka" to hiragana or katakana
or even kanji.

xcin (chinese) works the same way.

in arabic context we can do the same.
we type "k" the latin "k" character comes out
we type "a" (after k) then the arabic letter KAF shows up replacing the
latin "k" character, or alternatively the letter KAF with FATHAN shows
up.
if we type "i" instead of "a", then the arabic letter KAF with KASRA
shows up.
if we continue type "n" after "k" and "a", we can get "kan" sequence,
thus KAF with FATHATAN shows up. etc etc

> And we are not really directly translating a -> alef, b --> beh,
> ..........
> there should be a smart way, untill we standardise it, I think the
> input method won't be nice now!

input method can be used by any X application which honor X Input Method
(that's virtually any X apps!), so we can type transliterated arabic in
any X apps.

Or for the first time, maybe we can make a library instead a input
method. If we decide to make one, we just link the library.
-- 
Mohammad DAMT <mdamt at bisnisweb dot com>
http://www.bisnisweb.net ASP.Net Linux web hosting