Hey everyone, I was just speaking with Eric (edr1084) about a free and open-source project I've been collaborating on with Dr. Kevin Scannell called Accentuate.us (http://accentuate.us/). It is a new method of input for over 100 languages that allows users to type text in plain ASCII. Using statistics, it will add the diacritics, which have special meaning in many languages, automatically.
If you want a better idea of what Accentuate.us does, there's a quick, 50-second video of the Firefox add-on at http://accentuate.us/help The video features Irish and Haitian Creole. Another example would be Vietnamese: "Moi nguoi deu co quyen tu do ngon luan va bay to quan diem" is corrected to “Mọi người đều có quyền tự do ngôn luận và bầy tỏ quan điểm” after Accentuation. Recently, we developed an Objective-C implementation (https://github.com/spearhead/accentuateus-osx-service - AccentuateUs.h and AccentuateUs.m are the important bits) and I think this would fit really well with Adium since it makes it easier for people to communicate, and Eric seemed to agree. I don't know whether or not it would be better to deliver this as a plugin or core aspect of Adium, but I do believe that it can help a lot of people–those that have used the service already have been very happy with how it has helped them. Unfortunately, my plate is full when it comes to projects. We did make the Objective-C implementation so that it should be more or less trivial to implement at least basic functionality, including proper error handling (with localized descriptions where possible). Is there anyone who would be able to take on creating a plugin or adding it to Adium? I'm available on or off the list or on Freenode as mafs (I'm in #adium and #adium-devl) for any questions, feedback, and so on. Best, Michael
