Features/Inscript2 Keymaps

Feature Name

Summary

The m17n keymaps for Indic languages that follows new Enhanced Inscript draft standard(Inscript2).

Owner

• Name: Parag Nemade

• Email: pnemade@fedoraproject.org

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 17
• Last updated: 2011-11-15
• Percentage of completion: 100%

Detailed Description

Government Of India has created this new Enhanced Inscript standard which is in draft currently. This standard allows to create a new keymap with a design policy which would retain the major features of the existing Inscript keyboard. This standard will accommodate characters proposed in Unicode 5.2 on the keyboard and also ensure that the design could accommodate all future additions. This feature is implemented at upstream project https://fedorahosted.org/inscript2/

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora users can test this new standard and report if any bugs to its upstream. Fedora users will also able to type more characters using this keymap as it provides now more mappings using AltGr as it will allow to change layers(normal layer to extended layer).

Scope

This feature need to create m17n keymaps that follows Enhanced Inscript standard. This will be the change for those who want to write using Inscript keymaps. As contributed keymaps always used to become part of m17n-contrib package, this feature will need to add another source tarball inscript2 to m17n-contrib and install these new keymaps using m17n-contrib package.

How To Test

First we need to enable extended layer which can be switched to using AltGr key. Following are the steps to enable AltGr support

1) Start the gnome-control-center and click on "Region and Language"

Or

1) If you have already ibus running then click on ibus icon and select "Region and Language Settings"

2) Then click on the Layouts tab and then click on "Options" button.

3) Search for "key to choose 3rd level" and enable checkbox "Right Alt"

4) You need to also add inscript2 keymap to ibus.

5) After you added inscript2 keymap, restart the ibus and then select this newly added keymap

Once you done with above steps you can start input using this keymap. To test extended layer is working just try to input <AltGr + f > or <AltGr + r> or <AltGr + 4>. These are the input keys that most keymaps have mappings. If you will see the corresponding character using any of the 3 inputs then you have a working Inscript2 keymap.

User Experience

When a user have installed m17n-contrib-1.1.13-2.fc17 package on his system, he can add any inscript2 keymap in ibus. This feature just adds newer maps to what existing inscript maps are. After adding say hi-inscript.mim in ibus, user can start typing in Hindi language. Compared to old inscript maps these new inscript2 keymaps will provide more characters to input. They have almost same keymapping like old inscript standard to provide backward compatibility. Also, now the language coverage is increased from inscript(11 keymaps) to inscrip2(22 keymaps).

Dependencies

No package dependencies required for this feature.

Contingency Plan

No risk if this feature is not completed by deadline as this adds new keymaps which end user can then manually install from upstream tarball.

Documentation

• https://fedorahosted.org/inscript2/browser/README

Release Notes

• Fedora 17 has support for Inscript2 keymaps which follows Enhanced Inscript draft standard release by Government of India.

Comments and Discussion

• See Talk:Features/Inscript2_Keymaps