Myanmar (Burmese) keyboard for Google

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi all techies,

Google has been number 1 dominant emails used in this country (because all 
others (hotmail, msn, and yahoo) are not usable in Myanmar). Of course it is 
also number 1 search provider as well. We have recently finished translating 
google into Myanmar version too (at google translate project).

We would like to know what we can do develop or assist Google to develop 
Myanmar Unicode virtual keyboard to have it on Google search page, or on our 
web pages. One of our friends, Keith Stribley, has developed 
an on-screen virtual keyboard already too..

Working model can be tested here:
http://www.thanlwinsoft.org/ThanLwinSoft/_shared/myWebDevelopment/examples/myKey
board.html

Myanmar script is an 'Indic script', and it behaves pretty much like Urdu, 
Thai, Khamer, Sinhalese, etc. 
Please let us discuss further. Thank you. 

Steven Htut
http://winmyanmar.myanmars.net 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by winmyanm...@gtempaccount.com on 22 Jul 2010 at 3:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

For further info, please check out:
Google AJAX Language API (Virtual Keyboard API)
https://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/referenceKeyboard.html

Original comment by stevenh...@gmail.com on 22 Jul 2010 at 6:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Do you have a good description of how that keyboard layout work?
How does the key map to the unicode code point(s) and what kind of "transform" 
happen when the user type? 

Original comment by ft...@google.com on 26 Oct 2010 at 2:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, there are re-ordering rules for the IME. 
Most transformations are taken cared by the Unicode-compliant font itself.
Let me find the documented rules for that, and get back to you.

Original comment by stevenh...@gmail.com on 26 Oct 2010 at 2:47

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, Myanmar Unicode and NLP Research center (http://www.myanmarnlp.org.mm) is 
the "national body" working seriously on all such issues. I am a contributor 
there, as well as a language software developer. We'll be able to provide you 
all Myanmar syllables and how is the input sequence, and how is the correctly 
reordered syllables are (in compliance with the Unicode Standard 5.2 - 6.0).

rgds
Steven
Win Myanmar Systems
http://winmyanmar.myanmars.net

Original comment by stevenh...@gmail.com on 7 Nov 2010 at 9:45

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There are some example Myanmar keyboard layouts here:

http://www.thanlwinsoft.org/cgi-bin/hgwebdir.cgi/ekaya/file/dddc484438bb/keyboar
ds/kmfl/
The Burmese layouts are myWin and myanmar3std. The html files in that directory 
have documentation for them.

The keyboard should ensure that the data is stored according to UTN11v3.
http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn11/tn11-3.html
The table on page 6 shows the storage order. For Myanmar/Burmese the relevant 
rows are Kinzi, Consonant, Stacked, Asat, Medial Y, R, W, H, E Vowel, Upper 
Vowel, Lower Vowel, A Vowel, Anusvara, Lower Dot, Visible Virama, Visarga.

Users expect the e vowel to be typed before the consonant and kinzi after the 
consonant so those both require reordering. In addition the keyboard should be 
able to cope with medials, upper & lower vowels, anusvara, lower dot, visible 
virama being typed in any relative order.

Original comment by kstrib...@gmail.com on 8 Nov 2010 at 1:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What kind of description would be needed? If there is a template that can be 
used for describing keyboard layouts that would be great. We could just base it 
on that. Thanks.

Original comment by ravi.chh...@gmail.com on 13 Jul 2011 at 2:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Some recent developments:

http://www.google.com/inputtools/try/ now has two Burmese keyboard options: 
Myanmar3 and Myansan.

And these are also available as virtual keyboards in GMail and Google Docs.

google.com.mm has a keyboard in the search bar when Burmese is set.

And Chrome Input Tools extension has these two keyboards, too, so they cay be 
used with *any webpage* through the Chrome browser.

Note that these create Unicode text, not Zawgyi, so a Unicode font is needed.

I'd be interested in any comments or suggestions for these.

Original comment by CWCornel...@gmail.com on 10 Sep 2014 at 6:15