Indic Typing Booster
Summary
Indic Typing Booster is a predictive input method for ibus platform. It suggests complete words based on partial input. One can then simply select word from suggestion list and improve typing speed with more accuracy and convenience.
Owner
- Name: Pravin Satpute, Naveen Kumar
- Email: psatpute AT redhat DOT com, nkumar AT redhat DOT com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 15
Stape 1: fork ibus-table with customization for indic (ibus-indic-table) :- Minimum required stuff done, new package review request put at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=682130 [Done]
Step 2: Packaging Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati for Fedora
Marathi -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=683725 [Done] Hindi -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=684112 [Done] Gujarati -> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=688033 [Done]
Marathi, Hindhi and Gujarati built for fedora and pushed as a new package in bodhi for f14 and f15
Step 3: Initial Testing of Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati and bug fixing in ibus-indic-table and IT booster database i.e. key sequence
- Updated comps for Fedora 15
Step 4: Testing fixing bugs and Adding database for other language (Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu)
Step 1-3 are must for feature (other language can added afterwords as a update, since need to create database first for it)
- Last updated: 2011-03-23
- Percentage of completion: 100%
Detailed Description
This is an input method engine using ibus-indic-table to look words in a dictionary table. More information about project can be found at https://fedorahosted.org/indic-typing-booster/
Indic Typing Booster supports currently widely used maps, so the user does not need to switch his existing input maps, like inscirpt, itrans, typewriter. So with this new input method he can type the same way as he did with his older IME's but with prediction.
The mission of this project is to provide user friendly predictive text entry for Indic language users.
Benefit to Fedora
Users can create content in their native language with enhanced speed, accuracy and ease.
Speed:
After pressing a few characters the user can get the expected word in the candidate list and quickly select that.
Example: Entering the word 'भारतीय' with itrans keyboard normally requires 9 keys presses: 'bhaaratiiy'. With Indic Typing Booster it will only require 6 key presses, after inputting "bhaar" user can get 'भारतीय' in suggestion box, and then just need to press corresponding number key and done.
Accuracy:
Since the suggestions come from a validated word dictionary database, the selected words always give 100% accurate spelling. Note: correctly the present generated database is from unreviewed web data, in the long term with community help, they can be reviewed and the correctness checked as per standard. Also infrequent words which may be mis-spellings can be filtered easily from the dictionaries.
Easiness:
Indic scripts are complex since the order of rendering may differ from input order. It has reordering (eg क + ि -> कि ), feature conjunct (eg क + ् + ष -> क्ष), as well as split matras. Often new users are not familiar with these subtleties leading to incorrect or invalid text entry. Indic Typing Booster relaxes this as the user need to enter the complete word.
Adding New Words: One can add new words in to the IME's database, and they will also appear in the suggestion box.
This is easy with scim-tables: type phrase/word and then hit "Ctrl + =", then just enter a corresponding input key, and done.
Scope
1) Fork ibus-table for adding indic and typing booster specific changes in it.
package added ibus-indic-table [Done]
2) Create dictionary tables from wikipedia dumps for Marathi, Hindi, and Gujarati. More languages will follow later.
Added packages marathi-typing-booster, hindi-typing-booster and gujarati-typing-booster [Done]
3) Testing and improving user experience. [Going On]
How To Test
- $sudo yum install *typing-booster -y
- Add input-methods to ibus from preferences
- Activate input method and type with predictions in applications.
User Experience
1) predictions for entered words
2) easy typing of complex words
3) improved typing speed
4) often native users type their language's words using latin script (transliteration), so with this IME I think they will be able to type words in there own script easily.
Dependencies
This feature requires some improvements to be made to ibus-table.
It is already working well with scim-tables.
Contingency Plan
As these are new input methods, no contingency plans necessary.
Documentation
See the project website
Release Notes
Indic Typing Booster is a predictive input methods for Indian languages. Presently it is supporting Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati languages.