Re: Harakat project: new

[Karim Elaagouby <karim at elaagouby dot net>]

First: I am not suggesting this should be a priority, because
even if I had such an applet already, it would be useless to
me for the reasons Ahmad and Isam metioned.
I agree that applications should properly use harakat in the
text. However, the issue IS with users' ease of access to
harakat, which is why I used MS-Word as an example. MS-Word
properly uses shaping and harakat; and MS-Word is the most
widely used text processing software. Yet, the lack of
tashkil in arabic texts is still there. That's because access
to harakat is unobvious, even with MS. 
I agree that people can write on the keys or use stickers.
However, arabic keyboads are typically bilingual and pretty
crowded. A tool bar or an applet in my opinion is a way to
first tell the average user that "something" is possible and
can be easily used. I am just thinking if X has it, it will
give it one more advantage to using *nix over MS.

Maybe a better option is to create a keyboard that has keys
labeled for harakat or something of a sort of extended
keyboards.

-Karim

--- Isam Bayazidi <isam at bayazidi dot net> wrote:
> Salam Karim,
> well.. I don't see that there is a problem with Harakat
> Input.. as X 
> Input, KDE, Gnome have Harakat in the keyboard layouts.. so
> applets for 
> Harakat input is not really needed. One can either use
> Keyboard stickers 
> to place the Harakat on th keys, or write them on the keys.
> 
> the problem with Harakat is not Input:
> - Pango/GTK Layout for Words with Harakat is wrong, little
> spaces under 
> the Haraka is shown instead of having it written over the
> previous letter.
> - Mozilla Harakat Layout is wrong (same as above)
> - Open Office Layout for the Harakat is wrong (Same as
> above)
> - Text search with/without Harakat gives wrong results, for
> example if a 
> page contain the word (?????) then searching for (???) will
> not give the 
> desired result. This is with Google, Text search in VIM,
> OpenOffice, 
> Mozilla, and more.
> 
> Now if someone really loves the Harakat, and would love to
> see them 
> working fine, the problems mentioned above are more
> challenging/alerting 
> that Keyboard input :)
> 
> Yours
> Isam Bayazidi
> 
> 
> Karim Elaagouby wrote:
> 
> >Salam all,
> >
> >
> >I would like to bring attention to the use of harakat
> >(fat'ha, kasra, thamma etc.) and propose a solution to
> what I
> >see is a major problem.
> >
> >In the last several years, I noticed that TV news
> reporters
> >make a lot of mistakes that sound like grammatical
> mistakes,
> >as for instance starting a verb in passive voice with a
> >fat'ha, e.g. "yaktobo" instead of "yoktabo".
> >While reading news papers, I found myself having to read
> past
> >the first few words in a sentence to realize that I made a
> >mistake.
> >
> >More generally, I noticed that electronic text in arabic
> tend
> >to have less tashkil than hand-written one. 
> >Regardless of the fact that arabic is so sofiticated and
> you
> >can read it without tashkil, tashkil definitely improve
> the
> >speed of reading and avoid confusion with regard to word
> >meanings.
> >But why is tashkil not used to often as it should be on
> >computers?
> >
> >Actually, the answer is simple: it's not easily accessible
> to
> >do so, most keyboards don't even show the keys for
> harakat,
> >so most people don't know how to put a haraka on a letter
> in
> >MS Word, for example.
> >
> >So, I started dreaming up a solution to help anyone put
> >tashkil on text.
> >
> >1- A word processor (e.g. openoffice.org or MS word)
> should
> >have a Tool bar that shows icons harakat which when
> clicked
> >simply insert a haraka where the cursor is located.
> >
> >2- An applet may be run, independently of any application.
> >The applet should show a list of icons, one for each
> haraka,
> >and when clicked the applet inserts the active haraka in
> the
> >window. 
> >
> >I personnally like the 2nd solution and I am working to
> >implement "xharaka" (or any other name we choose). An 
> >XWindows applet that displays a table to icons (in the
> manner
> >of xclock), and when an icon is clicked the mouse cursor
> >changes (in the manner of xkill), when a window is
> clicked, X
> >inserts the selected character (haraka) into the input
> >stream to that window.
> >
> >This is still in the project phase. and I want to say
> this: I
> >am not fluent at all in X programming. I have no idea how
> >long it will take me to complete this, and I would gladly
> >pass it on to someone else with good X skills. 
> >So, please step forward.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >-Karim
> >
> >
> >=====
> >Karim Elaagouby
> >_______________________________________________
> >General mailing list
> >General at arabeyes dot org
> >http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
> >
> >
> >
> >  
> >
> 
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