BYTESFORALL: A LOOK AT SOME URDU DEVELOPMENTS...

Some useful and interesting links from the UrduComputing mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urdu_computing

URDU NVU RELEASE

Huda Sarfraz huda.sarfraz@nu.edu.pk: The current release of the Nvu localization includes the Urdu Nvu installer for Windows, which has it's GUI in Urdu. Work to be done for future releases includes changing the layout direction of Urdu Nvu to right-to-left. For download and installation details, please go to Urdu Nvu Windows Installer. http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/OSS/NVu.html

Nvu (pronounced "N-view") is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko 1.7. It is a common WYSIWYG editor for Linux and is intended to be an open source equivalent to proprietary software like Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver (although to date it is missing many features they possess). As a WYSIWYG editor, it is designed to be easy for novice users and does not require any knowledge of HTML or CSS to use. The project was started by and sponsored by Linspire. Linspire hired Daniel Glazman, former Netscape Communications Corporation employee and CEO/Founder of Disruptive Innovations, to be lead developer. Nvu is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, and it can be built successfully on any platform with the Netscape Portable Runtime. (Source: Wikipedia)

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ONLINE DICTIONARY:

Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar@rediffmail.com: A very good Dictionary is now available on line. Its huge database, Unicode nature, and Nafees Web Naskh font give it an edge over other on line dictionary sites. Visit here: http://www.urduenglishdictionary.org/

[Works fine in FireFox 2.0.0.9, on Windows XP-SP2 with Urdu fonts and phonetic keyboard installed for MS Office. When doing Urdu to English search, you will need to switch your keyboard to Urdu from the language bar.]

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GNU/LINUX WINDOW MANAGER xfce IN URDU:

Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar@rediffmail.com: Very good news. A low end yet powerful window maker for Linux is now translated into Urdu by Makki. XFCE may not be as beautiful an interface as KDE or Gnome for Linux, yet it is powerful and consumes less processor power and is light on RAM requirements, making it suitable even on a pentium-1 or 2 machine with 400-500 MHZ processor (Correct me if I am wrong). So now one can download this, and configure your Linux (with XFCE preloaded, since it is not bundled with in some Linux disros) to use Urdu interface of Linux. Download presently from here: http://www.4shared.com/file/28497917/a3c84cdc/xfce_441_Urdu_Translation_by_M... Soon to be uploaded in the download section of http://urduweb.org. Mohammed Ali Makki had already translated and made available Urdu Slax earlier that is available here: http://www.urduweb.org/mehfil/local_links.php?catid=19

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HINDI TO URDU TRANSLITERATOR:

Abdur Radhid: arnandan@yahoo.com A beta version of Hindi to Urdu Transliterator is available on line. Please give your feedback. Visit here: http://hindi2urdu.tripod.com

COMPILED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY: * * *

TYPING IN URDU, UBUNTU ETC:

Ali Hussnain Shah: hussnain_shah@gmx.net as a starting point you can use crulp's Urdu Layout for Linux at http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/keyboards/linuxphonetickb.html

There should be one text file containing the key mappings. You can us it to learn and change it as you like and use that on linux.

After you have developed a standard keyboard and if this should be included in all Linux distributions, submitting it to xorg (opensource implementation X Window System, on which KDE,Gnome are based) would be better.. their mailing list is at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg

After submission to xorg it will be included in all linux distributtions (debian, suse, ubuntu ...) as soon the distribution uses a new version of the X system. I think Sergey Udaltsov is responsible for handling of the X input system there in the list.

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PAKTYPE NASKH BASIC FONT:

Lateef Sagar Shaikh lateef_sagar@yahoo.com: I have created PakType Naskh Basic 1.0 font, which is available at:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/paktype http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paktype/files/NaskhBasic/1.0/

This font supports following languages: Amazigh, Arabic, Balochi, Balti, Berber, Brahui, Burushaski, Farsi, Fulani, Gojri, Hausa, Hindko, Kalami, Kanuri, Kashmiri, Khowar, Kurdish, Ladakhi, Maba, Malay, Mandinka, Ormuri, Pashto, Pathwari, Punjabi, Saraiki, Shina, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Torwali, Turkish, Urdu and Uyghur and others.

This font is free for distribution and modification under GPL. Glyphs taken from ArabEyes.org font KacstQurn, having following copyright notice; KACST holds the copyright of the included Arabic font which is donated under GPL by KACST. URW Design and Development holds the copyright of the included Latin font which is donated under GPL by URW.

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LIGATURE-BASD NASTALEEQ WRITING SYSTEM:

Sarmad Hussain sarmad.hussain@nu.edu.pk: In 1980 Mr. Ahmad Mirza Jamil developed a ligature based Nastaleeq writing system. He has written about 18,000 valid ligatures of Urdu and developed a Noori Nastaliq font.

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) is releasing a soft copy of these ligatures in Unicode format. CRULP has extensively used these ligatures for testing the fonts developed at the center and realised that it will be a valuable resource for other font developers. These ligatures are grouped in 2 to 8 characters and are sorted in the end character order. The ligatures can be downloaded from www.crulp.org.

Reference: "Noori Nastaliq computerised Urdu calligraphy (list of ligatures)," calligraphically designed and compiled by Ahmad Mirza Jamil, Elite Press, Karachi.

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URDU AND PHOTOSHOP CS2:

Imran Ahmed imran1@optonline.net: Why Urdu isn't supported in Photoshop CS2: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Adobe-Photoshop-1028/Urdu-Images-Photoshop.htm

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SEVERAL KEYBOARD LAYOUTS:

Imran Ahmad imran1@optonline.net: For the past couple of years I have been trying to find easy way to type in Urdu on computer. For these reasons I tried several Urdu keyboard layout such as pakUrdu, Bhurgri, NLA, Phonetic, phonetic-2, Ishaque, Olympia, Urdu Mahir, and MS_UR_KB. The fact that there are so many Urdu keyboard layouts while not having any standard set, made it more complex to achieve my goal. Finally I end up sticking with Microsoft Urdu keyboard, but the options for clear fonts type still lacks. -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 Links from Goa: http://goalinks.livejournal.com/