Re: Much a do about Nothing! -NO UNIQUE & EASY TELUGU SOFTWARE
Ramana R. Juvvadi (juvvadi@horizoncomp.com)
Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:24:00 -0400
Ramakrishna S. Pillalamarri writes:
> Not being RIT-like, or RIT-compatible is a drawback, I think. while RIT is
> of relatively recent vintage, that form of transcription is more or less
> what we have been implicitly using for a number of years, before even
> computers.
It should be remembered that the biggest difficulty for Indian
languages is on the input side. With the current font technology,
reasonable solns are possible on the output side. I think
that is why there is some hope for Telugu material displayed in
browsers etc.
The input side is far more difficult. Typical approaches fall into two
categories
(1) Transliteration oriented scheme (RIT, Rachana)
(2) Direct keyboard mapping (Most of the others)
While keyboard mapping schemes look easy at first sight, they are not
the best soln for typing large pieces of text. However, most direct
mapping schemes have the advantage of Wysiwig. What we need is a
WYSIWIG with a transliteration oriented scheme. Perhaps
Rachana fits the bill. I never used it, and I don't know how widely
is it avaialble.
It is unfortunate that RIT had to depend on LaTeX which is
not the most friendly software in the world. There are some
alternate solns for directly converting RIT to post script.
You don't get the left and right justifications though.
We might get a welcome relief if pen computing takes off. But
don' hold your breath. There are 100 million ASCII keyboards
in the world. We are not going to get out anytime soon
from the fact that Telugu content in cyberspace has to be
created on ASCII keyboards.
Ramana