Hi,
I did some testing on how the recently released Android ICS supports Indic languages.
*Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and Hindi are the only Indian languages supported for now*. Oh ya, it can also show English well without a problem ;)
You can view the findings in details at
http://microblog.ravidreams.net/2011/12/android-ics-support-for-tamil-indic-...
Screen shots with description can be found at
https://picasaweb.google.com/115896376016313561916/AndroidICSSupportForIndic...
I could not view the web fonts in Kannada, Telugu Wikipedias as Gerard has indicated at
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-android.html
Please let me know if I have to configure anything.
One major To Do for all Indic Wiki projects:
The mobile version homepage of most of the Indic Wikipedias is not showing anything except the search box. Please configure this well. You can see ta.m.wikipedia.org for example.
Ravi
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 9:17 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
I did some testing on how the recently released Android ICS supports Indic languages.
Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and Hindi are the only Indian languages supported for now. Oh ya, it can also show English well without a problem ;)
You can view the findings in details at
http://microblog.ravidreams.net/2011/12/android-ics-support-for-tamil-indic-...
I wouldn't say "supported". Language support generally includes:
- display/rendering - input - keyboard layouts - fonts - spellcheckers - dictionaries
Not all those checkboxes can be completely ticked when it comes to Bengali for the 4.0.3 release. I still see rendering issues with regards to spaces between conjuncts and so forth.
I wouldn't say "supported". Language support generally includes:
- display/rendering
- input
- keyboard layouts
- fonts
Only few years before even PCs supported all of these and it will take more years to get this in all gadgets. So, the only expectation now is to at least display the characters well. Input is the next priority which can be solved by 3rd party apps for time being once the display issue is solved.
- spellcheckers
- dictionaries
We don't have reliable and exhaustive solutions for these yet even in PC. Only some online dictionaries and alpha level spell checkers for browsers are available in FOSS.
Ravi
Ravi, while this is a positive sign of development, it isn't all that great news. Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x which lacks support. This includes the Aakash as well.
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
Srikanth, Android is not like Windows, where you get the latest version and install. You can upgrade only if your device manufacturer offers one. My dads Dell runs on 2.1 which cannot be upgraded. My sister uses an Optimus which runs on 2.2 and can be upgraded to 2.3. Also, Android is no longer ELITE. Android devices are available for as low as 6k. The Dell, I mentioned earlier now retails for less than 6K.
On 12/22/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
-- Regards Srikanth.L
+1. A lot of my classmates use Android, and they're definitely not 'elite'
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com wrote:
Srikanth, Android is not like Windows, where you get the latest version and install. You can upgrade only if your device manufacturer offers one. My dads Dell runs on 2.1 which cannot be upgraded. My sister uses an Optimus which runs on 2.2 and can be upgraded to 2.3. Also, Android is no longer ELITE. Android devices are available for as low as 6k. The Dell, I mentioned earlier now retails for less than 6K.
On 12/22/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
-- Regards Srikanth.L
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
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This is an exciting news. We were waiting for Indic languages support for many years. This will make possible the reach of Indic support ready phones and tablets to every Indian.
Text input is certainly not a problem, there are many apps which do this perfectly. One of them is MultiLing Keyboard
Search *MultiLing Keyboard* in android market, install and select your language in settings.
2011/12/23 Yuvi Panda yuvipanda@gmail.com
+1. A lot of my classmates use Android, and they're definitely not 'elite'
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com wrote:
Srikanth, Android is not like Windows, where you get the latest version and install. You can upgrade only if your device manufacturer offers one. My dads Dell runs on 2.1 which cannot be upgraded. My sister uses an Optimus which runs on 2.2 and can be upgraded to 2.3. Also, Android is no longer ELITE. Android devices are available for as low as 6k. The Dell, I mentioned earlier now retails for less than 6K.
On 12/22/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
-- Regards Srikanth.L
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog
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ePandit, Does this work on Android Eclaire, Froyo, and Gingerbread? These three are used extensively in India.
On 12/22/11, ePandit | ई-पण्डित sharma.shrish@gmail.com wrote:
This is an exciting news. We were waiting for Indic languages support for many years. This will make possible the reach of Indic support ready phones and tablets to every Indian.
Text input is certainly not a problem, there are many apps which do this perfectly. One of them is MultiLing Keyboard
Search *MultiLing Keyboard* in android market, install and select your language in settings.
2011/12/23 Yuvi Panda yuvipanda@gmail.com
+1. A lot of my classmates use Android, and they're definitely not 'elite'
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com wrote:
Srikanth, Android is not like Windows, where you get the latest version and install. You can upgrade only if your device manufacturer offers one. My dads Dell runs on 2.1 which cannot be upgraded. My sister uses an Optimus which runs on 2.2 and can be upgraded to 2.3. Also, Android is no longer ELITE. Android devices are available for as low as 6k. The Dell, I mentioned earlier now retails for less than 6K.
On 12/22/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
-- Regards Srikanth.L
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
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-- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog
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-- *Shrish Benjwal Sharma* *(श्रीश बेंजवाल शर्मा http://hindi.shrish.in)*
*If u can't beat them, join them.* ePandit <http://epandit.shrish.in/>:* *http://epandit.shrish.in/
Yes, this keyboard app works in all of these (the phone should display Hindi properly).
2011/12/23 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com
ePandit, Does this work on Android Eclaire, Froyo, and Gingerbread? These three are used extensively in India.
On 12/22/11, ePandit | ई-पण्डित sharma.shrish@gmail.com wrote:
This is an exciting news. We were waiting for Indic languages support for many years. This will make possible the reach of Indic support ready
phones
and tablets to every Indian.
Text input is certainly not a problem, there are many apps which do this perfectly. One of them is MultiLing Keyboard
Search *MultiLing Keyboard* in android market, install and select your language in settings.
2011/12/23 Yuvi Panda yuvipanda@gmail.com
+1. A lot of my classmates use Android, and they're definitely not
'elite'
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com wrote:
Srikanth, Android is not like Windows, where you get the latest version and install. You can upgrade only if your device manufacturer offers one. My dads Dell runs on 2.1 which cannot be upgraded. My sister uses an Optimus which runs on 2.2 and can be upgraded to 2.3. Also, Android is no longer ELITE. Android devices are available for as low as 6k. The Dell, I mentioned earlier now retails for less than 6K.
On 12/22/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 16:23, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Majority of India that uses Android uses v2.x
That "Majority" is elite enough to upgrade sooner IMHO.
-- Regards Srikanth.L
-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Yuvi Panda T http://yuvi.in/blog
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- *Shrish Benjwal Sharma* *(श्रीश बेंजवाल शर्मा http://hindi.shrish.in)*
*If u can't beat them, join them.* ePandit <http://epandit.shrish.in/>:* *http://epandit.shrish.in/-- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
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Android ICS does not natively support rendering of Tamil, Devanagiri and Bengali scripts. It just supports the fonts. Rendering depends on individual apps. This is a clever move from Google to increase the native browser usage. They've implemented font rendering in the stock browser; firefox still shows the compound characters wrongly. Facebook app renders correctly too.
Vijay
I don't think it has to do something with ICS or google has implemented this. Even before ICS, I have seen this behavior.
Most Samsung Galaxy series running Froyo or Gingerbread support Hindi display. In these phones Hindi is displayed properly in stock Android browser but not in Opera Mobile.
2011/12/24 apvr urapvr@gmail.com
Android ICS does not natively support rendering of Tamil, Devanagiri and Bengali scripts. It just supports the fonts. Rendering depends on individual apps. This is a clever move from Google to increase the native browser usage. They've implemented font rendering in the stock browser; firefox still shows the compound characters wrongly. Facebook app renders correctly too.
Vijay
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Hi,
The latest version of Android - Jelly bean - seems to provide excellent support for Tamil display. Support for other languages look OK but should be tested by native speakers.
http://microblog.ravidreams.net/android-jelly-bean-support-for-tamil-and-ind...
Ravi
Hi, as per recent blog post by Kannada Technologist Pavanaja, even Kannada has full support. The link is http://bit.ly/OpVORA
On Monday 09 July 2012 09:31 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote:
Hi, as per recent blog post by Kannada Technologist Pavanaja, even Kannada has full support. The link is http://bit.ly/OpVORA
is it for both input & output?
do we have touchscreen indic keyboards available in android phones? not the phonetic ones..
--
ஆமாச்சு
I'm not too sure. I assume that if one language has a keyboard then all of them should have. But seeing that this is Google, I have a feeling this is the same Indic Input that they have for Desktops.
On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 9:31 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan < parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, as per recent blog post by Kannada Technologist Pavanaja, even Kannada has full support. The link is http://bit.ly/OpVORA
Great news, Good progress by Google towards feature request by so many
for so long. Now wait for the low cost smartphone/tablet from vendors that supports this version to cause a big change in Indic computing!
Regards Arjuna
On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 04:15, Yuvi Panda yuvipanda@gmail.com wrote:
+1. A lot of my classmates use Android, and they're definitely not 'elite'
Most of them would have changed the phone once in 2 years(From 1100 to camera phone to S60s or similar to android), hence they are 'elite' and will also upgrade their phone by default sooner even if you dont call them 'elite'
That would make everybody with a phone elite. Whether they have a Nokia 1100 or Basic Music Java phone, irrespective of when they bought it. Some people, stick to phones for years. Three, four, five too. Difficutlt, but true.
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Only few years before even PCs supported all of these and it will take more years to get this in all gadgets. So, the only expectation now is to at least display the characters well. Input is the next priority which can be solved by 3rd party apps for time being once the display issue is solved.
Linux distributions have had the underlying codebase infrastructure to "support" Indian languages for close to 8 years now. Admittedly, the frameworks have changed/improved and, the resultant APIs have evolved. But the definition and scope of support put forth in my original mail has existed for that period of time. So it is certainly not a "few years".
"Displaying the characters well" is a very broad based statement and, I'll provide an example from the 4.0.3 build - I see Bengali rendered with some degree of accuracy when using the Gmail app, the same cannot be said when using the Twitter app for Android. Which brings out the notion that the ability to build up and use the existing underlying frameworks is not very well baked in. The other bit that will be useful to create a set of publicly available standard test pages for Indic text. Paragraphs which have sufficient complexity being handled via nearly all conjunct combinations and so forth would actually help testing the mobile app to the fullest.
Input and, primarily input methods are desired to be some form of standardization or, at least a reference implementation. In the early days of Linux (and, very recently during the stage with the 'Rupee' symbol), a lot of 3rd party application developers and ISVs came up with their own implementation of input methods and layout. The resultant effect was a large corpus of document which needed some form of 'translation' into Unicode-compliant form. Punting on ISVs to fix the input issue is a bad bet fraught with dangers. I am not suggesting that the ISVs will go out and deliberately muddy up waters. But the nature of the business and, the precedent leaves no doubt of such a situation repeating itself.
On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 5:07 PM, sankarshan foss.mailinglists@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Only few years before even PCs supported all of these and it will take more years to get this in all gadgets. So, the only expectation now is to at least display the characters well. Input is the next priority which can be solved by 3rd party apps for time being once the display issue is solved.
Linux distributions have had the underlying codebase infrastructure to "support" Indian languages for close to 8 years now. Admittedly, the frameworks have changed/improved and, the resultant APIs have evolved. But the definition and scope of support put forth in my original mail has existed for that period of time. So it is certainly not a "few years".
"Displaying the characters well" is a very broad based statement and, I'll provide an example from the 4.0.3 build - I see Bengali rendered with some degree of accuracy when using the Gmail app, the same cannot be said when using the Twitter app for Android. Which brings out the notion that the ability to build up and use the existing underlying frameworks is not very well baked in. The other bit that will be useful to create a set of publicly available standard test pages for Indic text. Paragraphs which have sufficient complexity being handled via nearly all conjunct combinations and so forth would actually help testing the mobile app to the fullest.
Input and, primarily input methods are desired to be some form of standardization or, at least a reference implementation. In the early days of Linux (and, very recently during the stage with the 'Rupee' symbol), a lot of 3rd party application developers and ISVs came up with their own implementation of input methods and layout. The resultant effect was a large corpus of document which needed some form of 'translation' into Unicode-compliant form. Punting on ISVs to fix the input issue is a bad bet fraught with dangers. I am not suggesting that the ISVs will go out and deliberately muddy up waters. But the nature of the business and, the precedent leaves no doubt of such a situation repeating itself.
Well said sankarsan.
Did anyone tested wikipedias in these languages in Android ICS? The controversial Lohit-Tamil font (I understand , Quality issues with Lohit was the reason for disabling Webfonts extention in Tamil) seems to be the default in Android . Anyway rendering in Andoid will be better that that of windows , because it uses harfbuzz.
Anivar
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