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A design is what the designer has when both time and money
run out. -James Poole
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What is WERD ?
WERD is a phonetic transliterator that helps users write english text but
read the same in the chosen Devanagari (Indic) font.
Why WERD ?
There are many indians spread around the world and within India who send each
other email and chat messages in indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and
Bengali. However there are 2 issues :
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There are no simple tools to allow text
composition in these languages directly. Most people find it an overkill to use
specialised editors and word processing software for simple tasks like
composing text for email and chat sessions.
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Most people are used to the
English keyboard and compose Hindi/Marathi/Tamil/Bengali text using the roman alphabets. While it is
easy to compose, it is inconvenient, cumbersome and ineffecient to read such
text as it has to be phonetically translated while reading to make sense in
these Indian Languages.
And that is exactly where this tool fits. It lets a user
type using the english keyboard, and phonetically transliterates it for the
appropriate Indic-Devanagari font, so that he can read in the Indian language of
his choice. The prime motivation behind this project is to make the life of
end-users with these needs easy.
Note 1 While only the Hindi and Marathi (and Sanskrit, of course) languages
normally employ the Indic script Devanagari, potentially every Indian language
can be written using Devanagari.
Note 2 WERD can be enhanced to support regional Indic scripts like Tamil,
Bengali, Gujarati and all others. Enthusiasts for the respective language are
urged to join this project on SourceForge, and contribute.
Features
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Support for 5 Devanagari fonts and a Unicode font
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Easy interfacing with the Clipboard so that text can be pasted into other
applications like chat sessions and html email editors.
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Displays the current word being typed, in a preview field.
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Many examples to speed up the learning curve.
Limitations
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Transliterates one word at a time. More granularity will give a feeling of
better control.
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Does not have the finest of 'look and feel's.
Future Enhancements
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Display list of possible words as a word is being typed and allow end user to
select from it.
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Allow for mixed text i.e. both english and Indian text in the same sentence.
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Support more number of fonts
To Begin With ...
Before you start using WERD, these are the things you need to know and do.
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WERD is written in Python (www.python.org),
an interpreted language. To know all about what Python is, what is it
good for, why one would like to program in it and any other queries you
might have, see Introductory Material on Python. You may also want to see this BeginnersGuide.
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You need to install Python to run WERD.
If you are running Linux, Python should be pre-installed. However, WERD
uses Tkinter, which may not be installed. If Tkinter isnt installed,
you will need to install the same from your distribution CD. The
package name should be python-tk .
For more information on Tkinter, you might want to see this Tkinter documentation.
If you are running Windows please see Python Windows FAQ . Also see How to install Tkinter for help on installing Tkinter.
If you are running MacOSX, please see Installing Python 2.3.x and Tkinter on MacOS X .
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WERD is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; specifically version 2
of the License
WERD is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
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I have a day job. So I have worked on WERD in whatever extra time I can make available at home.
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WERD has been tested with Python 2.4 on on both Windows and
Linux. I cannot test it on other platforms for lack of resources. If
you test WERD on any other version of Python on any other OS, and if
you let me know, I will put up a note in this space and give you
credit.
Additionally, WERD has been tested on
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Mac OS X 10.4 a.k.a. "Tiger" by Arun Chauhan
Thanks so much ! :)
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Your comments and suggestions are welcome. I will try my best to acknowledge
your email and improve WERD with your suggestions. You can log bugs or
enhancement requests in the Tracker at WERD's Project Page
