On Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:26:50 +0100 Helge Hafting <helge.haft...@hist.no> said:
> Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: > > On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:43:39 +0100 Helge Hafting <helge.haft...@hist.no> > > said: > > > >> Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: > >>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:32:48 +0100 Helge Hafting <helge.haft...@hist.no> > >>> said: > >>>> I hope things like this will be possible, if a new dictionary format is > >>>> realized. It is ok if typing "for" suggests "fôr" as an alternative, but > >>>> "før" should not come up unless the user types "f" "ø" "r". In which > >>>> case "o" must not be suggested... > >>> ok - how do you romanise norwegian then? example. in german ö -> oe, ü -> > >>> ue, ß -> ss, etc. - there is a set of romanisation rules that can convert > >>> any such char to 1 or more roman letters. i was hoping to be even more > >>> lenient with ö -> o being valid too for the lazy :) japanese has > >>> romanisation rules - so does chinese... norwegian must (eg æ -> ae for > >>> example). > >>> > >> Usually, one doesn't romanize Norwegian. There are some rules: æ->ae, > >> ø->oe, å->aa. They are next to useless, because ae and oe occur > >> naturally in many words where æ or ø does not belong, and these double > >> vowels are pronounced differently as well. A Norwegian seeing "oe" in a > >> word may be able to figure out if this means "ø" or if it really is > >> supposed to be "oe", but this may need a context of several words. And > >> it looks funny/wrong - similar to how it looks silly transcribing "x" as > >> "ks" and write "ksylophone". > > > > oh thats not bad! then it's just like english! (you get used to the vague > > insanity of it all sooner or later!) :) > > but seriously - if your name is nønæn, and you move to japan, and have to > > fill out a form for your bank account name - they will see the ø and æ and > > go "ummm. we can't do that - can you please use normal roman text?" > > Sure, in that case, it is ø->oe, æ->ae and å->aa. (Or some will go ø->o > and å->a because their name looks less mangled that way.) While this may > be ok for opening a bank account in japan, it is not something ordinary > people will want to consider for typing text messages on a phone. > Simple phones have had æøå in the T9 system for ages. (with "æ" and "å" > on the same key as "a", and "ø" on the same key as "o") > [...] sure! yes. thats why i allowed for keys to be 'ø' and 'æ' etc. etc. - already done. i was hoping to have a way of also doing it just with plain qwerty. so there is a way of reducing it :) > > just like my example above - but i guess i was being stricter. the stodgey > > old banking system isn't going to go adapt like modern sports data > > systenms. its "go roman - or go home". :) > > Sure. I just hope the freerunner doesn't evolve into a "stodgey old > thing" as far as keyboards are considered. Looks like it doesn't, so > I'll be fine. :-) > [...] unlike the banking system. the users CAN have a say in fixing it... if they just do some code :) if they just sit and wait for people to do it for them for free - they may have to wait a while until it becomes a priority for those doing the code. :) > > hmm. how interesting. i have always been baffled why there is a UK qwerty > > layout vs US - thre UK is the only place that uses it... all other english > > speaking countries i know use US qwerty (and if UK qwerty was nicely killed > > off.. it wouldn't need to be US qwerty - just qwerty) :) > > Surely this is because of the £-sign? (And € too, in later standards.) > I don't think they are ready to give up the pound. hmm no - they moved the a-z letters around. symbols i can understand. but what play with a-z layout... beats me... > > ok - but there is a way to do this. when stuck on your friends pc when > > visiting them in california, and they dont have compose-modes enabled... > > how do you type æ and ø etc. that was basically the q - there must be some > > accepted mechanism for decimation/conversion. seemingly it's the obvious: æ > > -> ae, ø -> o etc. > > My preferred way is to open a webpage and paste the special characters I > need. These days, any pc seems to support æøå even if the keyboard > itself doesn't. In a situation where æøå cannot be entered (such as the > sms app in SHR which erroneously filter out non-ascii), I write my > sentences very carefully avoiding these letters. For I don't want to > spell wrong deliberately, not even transcriptions. Those that care a lot > less about spelling use more transcriptions - and might even use > transcriptions on a phone that has æøå, because their phone is badly > adapted to Norwegian and have æøå in weird places. (Because the > manufacturers aren't really into adding a couple of extra _hardware_ > keys.) Software keyboards are great! yeah. this is one reason i want toi understand how it works without ø, æ etc. - one day there will be a phone with a kbd.. and it wont have a version per language because the # of users in norway are too small to warrant a special production run for them - same for germany, france etc. etc. - until you have the sales numbers to justify that.. you need a way to either work around it by ignoring them - or have software correct it. so software that works eventually with a hw kbd and inserts the right ø, æ etc. based off normal a-z typing... would be useful. indeed a software kbd here rules - u can adapt it for a small market of 10 people - as its really just a bit of config, not a new hardware run. but i just wanted to know how it'd be solved when you cant modify the kbd layout in software anymore... :) solve that in principle once with a vkbd - and you can solve it for hw kbd's too. > >> Excellent! > >> So if I have a wordlist and make a keyboard, then a dictionary can be > >> synthesized so there will be no unnecessary confusion between o and ø, > >> because both letters exists as keys? > > > > correct. as long as the dict matching doesnt drop extra info - ie normalize > > o -> ø. currently it does. but the rest o the code doesn't. it's just the > > dict matching engine - which as we have been discussing... needs work. :) > > > The dictionary file problably need to have some metadata anyway - such > as what language it is for. It could also have a list of what non-ascii > letters to use as-is. And assume standard romanization rules for the rest. yup. i just want to understand the constraints of the languages i don't know - and how they are used. it gives me insight into how to solve the problem on a wider picture. thanks for the info. so i do know now that 1. norwegian does allow for conversion to roman-only text. there are rules much like german. 2. this conversion isn't used much and is a "last resort" thing. 3. only a few "special" letters are needed for common use cases in addition to latin :) -- ------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" -------------- The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler) ras...@rasterman.com _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community