<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style>there are a couple of keyboard layouts/input </span><span style>methods available on the Android Market (Play). Have you had a chance </span><span style>to look at them ?</span> </blockquote>
<div>That was the very first thing I did. I downloaded the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.klye.ime.latin&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5rbHllLmltZS5sYXRpbiJd">MultiLing keyboard</a> and the Mayabi keyboard(which turned out incompatible with my SGS II). The multiLing keyboard has a decent layout (with matras on one side and the consonants on the other). However, I didn't understand the thought process behind the location of the consonants. Some of the more used ones where at a greater distance for the thumb as compared to other less used ones. Also, the rendering of conjuncts was messed up (may be it's because of my phone). The fast prediction system was pretty impressive. What I understood was the need for a better layout, a more intuitive entry system and bigger keys.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<span style>Additionally, did you include within your study </span><span style>time, any reading on the why and how of the currently available </span><span style>layouts for Bengali ?</span> </blockquote><div>Yes. I made it a point to read up as much as possible about Bengali (and Hindi/Devnagri) keyboards and the design principles involved in each. The keyboard layouts I read up about are Baishakhi Inscript Layout, Uni-Geetanjali Layout, Samit Toptype Layout and WEBEL Layout and also comparative studies on their performance. Apart from these, I also went through soft keyboard implementations of popular English keyboard styles (like Dvorak, Fitaly, Opti, Cirrin, Lewis etc.) in Bengali. </div>
<br><div><span style="font-size:13.3px;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><div style="margin:0pt 0pt 8px"><p style="margin:0pt"><b style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">Suvonil Chatterjee</b><br><font size="1"><i>Undergraduate Student, <a title="BITS Pilani" href="http://bits-pilani.ac.in" target="_blank">BITS Pilani</a>.</i></font></p>
<p style="margin:0pt"><font size="1"><i><br></i></font></p></div></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:x-small"><i>Design Intern, </i></span><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:x-small">Rovio. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-size:13.3px;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><div style="margin:0pt 0pt 8px"><p style="margin:0pt;color:rgb(153,153,153)"><font size="1"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><i>UI Architect, </i>Framebench(Previously Anaya Labs).</span></font></p>
<p style="margin:0pt;color:rgb(153,153,153)"><span style="font-size:x-small"><i>Lead Design , </i>TunePatrol</span><span style="font-size:x-small">.</span>
</p><p style="margin:0pt"><span style="font-size:13.3px;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><font style="color:rgb(153,153,153)" size="1"> </font><br></span></p></div><font size="1"><span style="color:gray">My profiles: </span></font> <font size="1"><a href="http://facebook.com/suvonil" style="text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><img alt="Facebook" style="padding:0px 0px 5px;vertical-align:middle" src="http://images.wisestamp.com/facebook.png" border="0" width="16" height="16"></a> <a href="http://twitter.com/suvonilc" style="text-decoration:underline" target="_blank"><img alt="Twitter" style="padding:0px 0px 5px;vertical-align:middle" src="http://images.wisestamp.com/twitter.png" border="0" width="16" height="16"></a></font></span><font size="1"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="color:gray"><br>
My portfolio:</span></span> <a href="http://www.suvonil.in" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><i>www.suvonil.in</i></span></a><br></font><span style="color:rgb(128,128,128);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:x-small">Contact: 91 666 84 822</span><font size="1"><br>
</font><span style="font-size:13.3px;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><img src="http://s.wisestamp.com/pixel.png?p=chrome&v=2.0.3.0&t=1287253518347&u=665939&e=3132" width="1" height="1"></span></div>
<div style="padding:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-top:0px;overflow:hidden;word-wrap:break-word;color:black;font-size:10px;text-align:left;line-height:130%"></div><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 8:27 PM, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sankarshan.mukhopadhyay@gmail.com">sankarshan.mukhopadhyay@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Suvonil Chatterjee <<a href="mailto:suvonil@gmail.com">suvonil@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> Hi, I'm Suvonil, currently in my second year of Electronics Engineering @ BITS Pilani. I've been lurking around the mailing list and the irc channel for the last 10-12 days but didn't introduce myself till I had done some solid work. It's been really exciting to go through all the factors that are considered while designing a keyboard layout, the challenges one faces with Indic languages and brainstorming about the same with my friends. The small test runs with trying to render ASCII characters on the keys in Android served as a reminder that nothing worth doing is ever easy. Anyways, I finally submitted my proposal last night.<br>
<br>
</div>I'll probably end up asking this and more on the proposal, but here's<br>
a preliminary query - there are a couple of keyboard layouts/input<br>
methods available on the Android Market (Play). Have you had a chance<br>
to look at them ? Additionally, did you include within your study<br>
time, any reading on the why and how of the currently available<br>
layouts for Bengali ?<br>
<br>
--<br>
sankarshan mukhopadhyay<br>
<<a href="http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/" target="_blank">http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/</a>><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Project-ideas mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Project-ideas@lists.ankur.org.in">Project-ideas@lists.ankur.org.in</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.ankur.org.in/listinfo.cgi/project-ideas-ankur.org.in" target="_blank">http://lists.ankur.org.in/listinfo.cgi/project-ideas-ankur.org.in</a><br>
</blockquote></div><br>