Hello Friends While using the ben_extended Probhat Keyboard Layout and OOo 2 binaries compiled by Sayamindu Dasgupta, some points occurred to me.
1. The assignment of three adjacent keys, '[', ']' and '\' for three extremely over-used characters, 'e-kar', 'o-kar' and Conjoiner, is not very healthy for speed or ease of typing. Particularly the Conjoiner. And this '\' key does change its position from keyboard to keyboard. On my laptop keyboard (Acer 3002) this thing is exactly on the same line and the third in the line, while the keyboard that i use with my desktop (TVS Gold) has it on the upper row, just the one before 'Backspace'. If the leftmost key on the keyboard, the one that gets the back-quote, '`' : if we use this one for the Conjoiner, is it not a better idea? The Left Little Finger can go better with it, IMO. 2. The only font that is working good with the Autocorrect Replacement of Straight-quotes with Smart-quotes is Solaiman Lipi. And also the 'dnarhi' or the Bangla Period, that does not come with Lohit Bangla and some other fonts. On both these counts Solaiman Lipi works good. But, the replacement of two adjacent small dashes with an 'Em-dash' does not work cleanly with Solaiman Lipi. In some cases it does, in some cases it does not. I could not get a pattern. 4. And the other problem with Solaiman Lipi is that, the 'Khanda-ta' does not work in all cases. What i do is, typing a 'ta' and then a 'hasanta' and then type the next character. In some cases where i am writing a letter that does not have a natural conjoined form with 'khanda-ta', like say 'sa', as in 'bibhatsa', the 'ta-hasanta' combination changes into 'khanda-ta', and if this character does have a natural conjoined form, they become conjoined, which i avoid with the insertion of a Non-joiner. But this is not consistent. In some cases it behaves unpredictably. And what happens when the next character is a Space? What i have to do is to select the 'ta-hasanta' combination and change it into Lohit Bangla. 5. And, the Line-space of the fonts are so different. Lohit Bangla fonts take less height and less vertical space than Solaiman Lipi, so it has to be adjusted when i am using any character from a different font. The vertical space difference is most dramatic with BN-Bidisha. I think you technical people there must first concentrate on one font, and make it usable in every way. I think Solaiman Lipi is the best contender for that pride of place. The best behaved of the lot. But, some characters are visually not so good, what say BN-Bidisha or Lohit Bangla or Saagar are. So, any font will do that works cleanly with OOo. 6. The non-joining of 'a' and 'hasanta' is another problem. How to write the character that comes at the start of the words like 'academy' or 'account'. The 'hasanta' thing does not come after 'a'. So, the way out is to use 'antastha a', then 'hasanta', and then 'ya'. This looks pretty outlandish. 7. The 'dash' cannot be typed in BN keyboard. Everytime one has to type a 'dash', first change the KB layout with 'Ctrl-Shift', then type the 'dash' and then again change back to BN with 'Ctrl-Shift'. This is a nasty thing for healthy typing. When you technical people will start to think about us, the poor hapless writers, or type-writers, as it seems at times. Just think, how many times a 'dash' is used in Bangla words, even within words, let alone as a syntax sign. 8. I think some more things are there. I will report them later. And one apology from the start: i was pretty uneasy to write it here being a nontechnical person myself. But Sayamindu Dasgupta insisted it. I am using OOo now for my Bangla writing. And at last i could bid good bye to the MS thing from my machine. Thank you all for making that possible. Let the Keyboard be with you. -- dipankar das ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Bengalinux-core mailing list Bengalinux-core@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bengalinux-core
