thaana keyboard iOS 5.0.1 available

just to follow up from the previous post here, the latest version of thaana keyboard for iOS 5+ is available. It SHOULD work on iOS 5.1 as well, but since I cannot upgrade my own devices just yet, I cannot test it.

You can get it installed from PDALink in henveiru (for a fee), in front of Shaheed Ali Mosque near Ameer Ahmed/Beach Store. I have not put it up online for installation at this time.

 

some of the more convenient features of this version include:

1. Automatic switch to a right-to-left layout
2. Ability to choose between phonetic and typewriter layouts
3. much faster
4. Autocorrect: the phone will learn words that you type, and auto-correct them when you make mistakes later (this functionality is slightly limited, but it works)

I apologize for the inconvenience with the installation method. iPad version is in the works (mostly done, but I can't release anything since I don't own a usable iPad at the moment :/)

updates on Thaana Keyboard for iOS5

I keep getting a lot of questions regarding the status of the iPhone thaana keyboard tweak for the newer (iOS5 and up) firmwares, so I thought I would write a follow up.

for those of you who're in the dark; some time ago I released a thaana keyboard for iOS. This was then quickly ripped off by SOME people for profit. Since then I have not posted any major updates (and the ones I have released were restricted to close friends and family). This version worked all the way from 4.0 to 4.3.3. long story short, come iOS5 - people were left dangling.

I have been informed by sources that eLL claims to have their own developers in Malaysia working on it - which has yet to bear any fruit - so some people can wait for that if they wish.

Contrary to popular belief however, I have NOT been sitting idle all this time. So here is the official word on the iOS5 updates:

YES there is a version for iOS5 that I have been working on…and YES it works. However it is a little buggy right now and hence not ready for a release so NO I will not be releasing it at this time… and NO there is no guaranteed time-frame.

On a positive note however, this version should work across the full iOS spectrum (meaning iPhone,iPad, iPod touch).

and just to show you I'm not bluffing, here's a screenshot of an iMessage (which as you know is iOS5+) being written in thaana.

cheers.

Radheef for OSX dictionary.app (beta)

Before I say anything more... BETA means I want YOU...to give me feedback.. got it? alright let's proceed.

A few months ago I twought (thought + tweeted) that I, for one, would like to have the radheef available on the native mac dictionary app. This was met with some positive response (yes you @bandey); which motivated me for about 15 minutes until I started playing Uncharted 2… and everything went downhill from there.

I had already done something similar for linux (which I talked about here and here), so I figured it wouldn't be too difficult. So tonight - since I'm bored and have nothing better to do - after an hour or two of toiling around I've managed to get it up and running.

point to note here BEFORE people start asking me how to setup thaana keyboard or something stupid like that, you CAN use ASCII to search. (as in you can search for 'mwkunu' or 'މަކުނު' to the same effect. Also not that you don't have to type in the entire word (dictionary.app does prefix matching on the headword against the query)

screenshots ahoy! Scroll all the way down for the download link (only if you read the above of course) and setup instructions.



edit: new easy to use installer HERE

the dictionary database can be downloaded HERE..HERE HERE MIYOTHEE

extract the zip file and copy the "dv_MV radheef.dictionary" file to either ~/Library/Dictionaries (for single user) OR /Library/Dictionaries (for all users).

that's all folks.

iThaana for iPhone 4.3.x

Firstly, allow me to apologize for the delay in packaging the keyboard/font package for iPhone for firmwares 4.3 upwards...I have been really rather busy with a lot of things of late, and I have been taking some..personal time. I'm sorry to have kept a lot of you guys waiting. I am touched by the amount of emails that you've sent.

afxal and I are working to release the update soon enough, and will hopefully make it available within the week.

There is an important side-note here though; I had originally planned to improve and release the keyboard as a commercial package. However, after a long battle with me conscience I decided to keep the package free for now. I do not however, guarantee that future versions will be free.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. I am a college student trying to earn an education - and this costs money.
2. I am starting to get sick of commercial entities (yes...you) grossly misappropriating and continuing to exploit our work for monetary gain...
3. I have no monetary goals, but a little retribution is always welcome. (Please contact me on twitter or facebook if you would like to make a donation.)

So keep a lookout. Updated packages will be made available on m0bi repo. < http://www.m0bi.com/cydia>

As with the previous releases, I am releasing it under the terms lf GNULesser/LGPL, so if you are not familiar with the terms, please read up on them.

Quran Translation needs Your Help.

I understand that the text here might seem a little long and boring, but please bear with me. This is important. If you must skim, please read the last few paragraphs.

About an year ago, I grew frustrated with the lack of a readily usable version of the Quran translation in Dhivehi. Back then, I wanted to be able to use the Dhivehi translation with Zekr; a free (as in freedom) versatile open source Quranic study tool that came standard with a multitude of translations, recitations, localizations and so forth. I wished that the Dhivehi translation was also included among these for everyone to benefit from. For this, I needed a standards compliant plaintext UNICODE version of the translation which, needless to say was not available.

I searched high and low to find such a text. The PDF's available on Presidency Maldives where just that. PDF's from which - despited many hours spent trying - nothing "useful" could be extracted. All the while, interest in the efforts grew, and a few of my friends (Bunyameen, his brothers, Nisham, Nadheem and so on to name a few) volunteered to help.

We approached the Islamic Ministry, the Presidents Office, and all our friends in nooks and crannies of the government trying to obtain in the very least, an MS Word document that we could work with. None of these people were willing to part with anything useful - officially stating the reason that the subject of the Quran Translation was too "volatile" for them to release it. That there were people looking for commercial/political/religious/social/etc gain from the text.

about updates: iPhone Thaana Keyboard.

This post is long over-due and I apologize for not having written it sooner.

as you probably might have noticed, the thaana keyboard currently only works on 4.0x and 4.1x firmware. However since then, apple has released a major firmware update in the form of 4.2.1. This update include a tonne of changes, including changes to the default fonts, font-handling and keyboard configurations. This inadvertently has broken both our thaana fonts package as well as thaana keyboard package. So right now, the keyboard does not work for 4.2+.

The good news is that it IS possible to get it back up and running without too much effort.

however the bad news is that I am currently using an non-factory unlocked iPhone 4 (as is afxal). As of now, there is no unlock for the iPhone 4 on 4.2.1 firmware. Hence I am unable to update my phone to the newest firmware.

The bottom line is that until I can run 4.2+ firmware on my device, I cannot update the packages. I sincerely apologize for this. Hopefully, the dev-team will come out with some good news soon.


P.S - Some of you have asked if I stopped working on these projects because of what happened with eLL Mobile. This is not the case.

P.P.S - yes eLL, I know you have been  emailing people looking for updates.

RELEASE - Thaana Keyboard for iPhone is now LIVE

It's here! So much for my "teaser campaign"..

If you have an iOS4+ (firmware 4.0 and above) device and you're jailbroken, you can now enjoy typing stuff (including emails,sms's,contacts,etc...) in Dhivehi, right from your phone. (yes...you can SMS other iPhones and some Android phones  in thaana - see here and here on how to install thaana font on android)

Head on over to Cydia and put http://www.m0bi.com/cydia in your sources list.
Add the m0bi repo to your cydia sources,refresh and install the package from the package list. If you're a complete n00b and have no idea how to do that, follow this guide here on how to add cydia sources.

Hit the jump for a screenshot tour on how to enable the new keyboard.

So once you have the m0bi repo setup, tap on it and you'll be able to see all the packages from the repo. Look for iThaanaKB or Thaana (Phonetic) Keyboard in the list. tap..install... And follow the picture story below.

We are releasing this under the terms of GNULesser

Enjoy!
Many thanks and respect to kennyTM,fabkk2002 and all the other guys who helped out. Wouldn't have been possible without the work you guys put into it. And thanks once again to ap0 for the support and hosting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPhone Thaana Keyboard (Coming Soon)

Update: The SHTF in a day or so - stay peeled! 

Bringing the iPhone (I know you have one) a little close to home. Here is a little teaser for those of you interested.

Keey an eye out here, and don't forget to add http://www.m0bi.com/cydia to your cydia sources. (No this is NOT being developed by eLL M0bile's people in Malaysia. They had nothing to do with this.)

Read more after the jump

Experimental Thaana Spell-checking with Hunspell

During our (MOSS) recent meeting with the presidents office about the Zekr translation project, we came to realize that "spell checking" thaana writing is something that people really want - especially in government offices. This gave me incentive to follow up on my previously failed experiments with this.

[NOTE: I am aware that this feature is available in "Xiosis Scribe", however their approach to this appears to be somewhat lacking and IMHO disappointing. Also, the closed source nature of their system pisses me of]

I decided to try and implement this by building a custom dictionary for hunspell. This approach has several advantages too great to be ignored. a) it eliminates the need to write the spell-check engine from the ground up. b) It provides immediate integration into software like openoffice and firefox (and potentially even MSWord) to name a few. Of course there is the risk that it might not be able to handle dhivehi's "rules" - but as I always say if the Arabs and the Hebrews can do it - and it has been done - then so can we.

So I used the scripts I wrote for The Radheef project to generate words, and wrote a simple affix file to munch it down with. Using a dictionary comprising of all the "headwords" in the Radheef, and this affix file I was able to obtain some promising results - enough to convince me that it just may be possible to achieve reasonable results using Hunspell.

and the saga continues...

The contents of the Affix file

The test file to run the spell check on

We give hunspell a chance to process it...

and this is the resulting output ("misspelled" words with their suggestions)

I hope I got the attention of some talented young out there and hope that you take an interest in this.

Get rid of MV Boli on Windows 7/Vista/Xp

some time ago our dear friend MoyaMeeha wrote on how to "get rid of the damned boli font" on Windows XP and whatnot. Unfortunately Windows Vista broke the tool that was used..and it remained broken in windows 7.

Sadly though, MV Boli remains to haunt us.

FORTUNATELY though, it appears to be a relatively simple task to rid ourselves of this menace!

WARNING: Always make a backup of your registry before editing it.

The fix involves changing out two registry keys. I'm not entirely sure if changing the first one is absolutely necessary, but we'll do it anyway for good measure.

in the start menu search bar, type "regedit" and open it. (XP users type regedit in the Run dialog)
Once in the registry editor navigate to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts]

Here you'll see a listing for a bunch of fonts. Scroll down until you find the name of your REPLACEMENT font (eg MV Faseyha). Double click this, and copy the value. Now scroll to where it says "MV Boli", double click it and paste the value you just copied into the dialog box. Click ok. Also make a note of the NAME of the replacement font. Choose the replacement font wisely. It has to be a good unicode font. I recommend MV Faseyha, Faruma or one of the fonts from the Iyyu or Elaaf family of fonts.

Now navigate over to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes]

from here find the key "MV Boli", double click it and change the value to the name of the replacement font exactly as it was in the previous list (without the "(open type)" bit) eg. "MV Faseyha","MV Iyyu Formal" etc...

save and exit. Then restart your system. Boli should be replaced now.

IF you're feeling super lazy, I've put together a small registry patch file that should do the work for you. However I do not recommend using this as the font file name and stuff may differ between systems.

Download HERE

thanks apo and ÎĦΣçҜәѓ™ for the help testing this out.

Dict Database for Dhivehi Radheef Update

I'm releasing a minor update to the previously released database.

by minor I mean a complete overhaul - I had to rewrite the entire conversion script because of the recent "hard drive crash". I've managed to fix the "number reversal" problem, and also changed the formatting a little. Also included in the dictionary now are additional information about the words like "kan ithuru","nan ithuru" and so on....

Otherwise everything is pretty much the same. Installation instructions can be found on the previous post HERE

updated files are here:
RAW zip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef.zip
deb : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5385653/radheef/dict-radheef1-03.deb

Dhivehi Quran Translation now available for Zekr and Tanzil.info

UPDATE: The translation pack and is available from the Zekr website now. Download from there.

Ramazan Mubarik fellow bretheren. It gives me great pleasure to (sort of) formally announce the release of the Zekr Quranic study tool with Dhivehi localization and translation packs.

I'm also happy to announce that www.tanzil.info now hosts the Dhivehi translation of the Holy Quran for everybody to enjoy, free of charge.

This has been part of a MOSS initiative, and I'd like to thank everybody who worked on the project with me. Particularly Mohamed Malik, Bunyameen and Sobah.

As of version 1.0 of Zekr, you can select "Dhivehi" as a display language under tools->options.

The translation pack hasn't been officially sanctioned yet, we're waiting for the Presidents office to formally OK the project. Meanwhile, you're welcome to "unofficially" download and use it.

INSTALLATION is a simple three step process.

1. Download and install Zekr from www.zekr.org
2. Download the translation pack (see link belowupdate above)
3. Run Zekr. goto Tools->add->translation and select the zip file you just downloaded.

you can now select the translation under view->translation.

*note: if you encounter a "could not find Java VM" error, make sure you have a recent version of Java installed on your system. Download Java from http://www.java.com/en/download/

If you find any errors, please send an email to kudanai [yetu] gm[ail] dotu [comu]

you can find full details and installation instructions in this months MOSS magazine.

Download Dhivehi translation pack for Zekr

Zekr website

Thaana fonts for linux

Based on the original script by vishah, this package contains the most commonly used thaana fonts (on the web), and a small installation script to help the process. If you want to include potential updates and stuff, use vishah's online script. Use this for offline setups.

DOWNLOAD