Some Update
It is time again to share some thoughts with you but first there is some update on the Urdu Editor.
Update on Web-based Urdu Editor
I have fixed some bugs regarding punctuation marks and the full stop. The more significant update is that now the Urdu Editor also works in FireFox. You can download the updated version of the Urdu Editor from the same location.
Download UrduEditor
View demo page
Fixing the behaviour of the Urdu Editor in FireFox was an interesting experience. There is actually a JavaScript debugger for FireFox. This may not be very stable but it is still a huge improvement over popping up message boxes just to find out if something is going wrong.
I am grateful to everybody who liked the Urdu Editor and praised it. I am interested in finding out how many are actually using it i.e. the success stories kind of thing.
Accessible Urdu Font
Some people have told me that from the known Urdu fonts, only Urdu Naskh Asiatype works on Windows 98. Urdu Naskh Asiatype is a TrueType font whereas the Nafees font-family consists of OpenType fonts, which won’t work on Windows 98. I am not able to verify this because I do not have Windows 98 on my computer. But if it is true, we should at least offer Urdu Naskh Asiatype as an alternative font on our blogs and the UrduWiki so that it displays correctly also in Windows 98. The edit area of UrduWiki is set to use Tahoma which again is an OpenType font. Asif should have a look into this matter and make changes accordingly if needed.
The reason why I think Windows 98 is so important is its installed base. My assumption is that Windows 98 users still constitute the majority of computer users in Pakistan and India. We surely don’t want to shut ourselves off from the very audience that we are trying to attend.
Blogging in Local Languages
It is heartening to see the growing number of Urdu bloggers. Some bloggers like Asif occasionally post a blog in Punjabi. I think we should encourage this trend. Blogging can be a way to promoting Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi and Pashto on the net in the same way it is being for Urdu now.
The web-based Urdu Editor can be very easily customized for typing in Sindhi, Balochi etc. One needs an appropriate font that contains the glyphs for the characters in some particular local language and the information about keyboard mapping. If there are people who need help in this regard, they can contact me through this blog or at simunaqv [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com.
March 23rd, 2005 at 2:47 am
assalam alaykum,
I’m very excited about your efforts to promote Urdu on the internet and I think it’s a wonderful. I was wondering if you could help me (and if this is the wrong place to ask this, I apologize). I have an iBook and I want to be able to blog in both English and Urdu (on blogger.com) but I can’t figure out how to get things like “ttay” and “noon ghunnan” to work on my computer. Any thoughts? Although there is an option for Urdu so that I can read Urdu on the web, I can’t write Urdu because Arabic, Farsi and Pashto are the only input languages on my iBook. This is in OS X. Would your Urdu editor work in OS X? Any thoughts? And thank you very much for your time.
Kyla Pasha
March 23rd, 2005 at 9:29 am
Dear Kyla Pasha
Thank you for your comment. You are actually at the right place for your questions. The problem is that none of us is using OS X at the moment (I think, at least). We can still give it a try. You should have the Urdu Naskh Asiatype font installed on your system. If you can properly view BBC’s Urdu web site, the font is already on your system.
You are probably using the Safari browser. You can give it a try by navigating to the test page. I have tried to make the Urdu Editor a pure HTML/JavaScript based solution. Tell us about your experiences.
Regards,
March 23rd, 2005 at 3:52 pm
Kyla: Surprising that Mac does not have an Urdu keyboard. The characters are there in some of the fonts but they are not mapped to any of the keyboards. You have a few options:
Since I don’t use a Mac (and I think none of us here do), I can’t be of more help. We would like you to help us by writing up instructions about reading/writing Urdu on the Mac platform here as well as on our Urdu Wiki.
March 24th, 2005 at 1:17 am
Thank you very much for you help!
Nabeel: Thank you for directing me to the test page for the editor. It works quite well, although it doesn’t seem to have the letters “pay” , “zayn”, and “ghayn”. It’s also inconsistent about when it uses the medial “hay” as a “doe-chashmi” (like in Bhatti) and when it uses it as a hooke (like in “bohat zyada”). I’m mentioning this just by means of helping you refine it since I got the impression you’re still working on it. I haven’t tried to type into it and then copy-paste into another application yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know how that works. Thank you again for your help.
Zakriya: Thank you very much for all those options. I enabled the Unicode Hex Input Keyboard, but couldn’t figure out what to do after that (I haven’t read the manual, so I’ll figure it out later! I don’t really know what Unicode Hex vaghera actually means or does, so…
) . I did investigate the various Unicode glyphs that are in my computer and on the resource pages you directed me too. Some of them join well (such as the medial “hay” in “bohat”) and some of them don’t (such as the medial medial “ttay” as in “banttay” [marbles] or the final position “noon ghunnan” [like in “hain”, “jayein” etc]). So I’m not sure what to do, besides see if I can build a keyboard that will join all the letters that need to join. As I said, I will definitely let you know what happens.
March 24th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Kyla: The joining issue is usually a font problem than a keyboard one. I think this list is of all Arabic script fonts included with Mac OS. Try different fonts or even download other fonts like those listed here.
March 24th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
Dear Kyla Pasha
It is good to know that the Urdu Editor works on OS X, more or less. With some perseverance you can even make it work properly. The Urdu Editor has an extremely simple design. It is based on the mapping of ASCII-characters to Unicode letters. This mapping is stored in the codes array. The letter peh is mapped to small letter ‘p’ whereas dochashmi hay is mapped to small letter ‘h’.
.
codes[‘p’]=0×067E; // peh
.
.
codes[‘h’]=0×06BE; // dochashmi hay
I looked up the Unicode codes using windows’ character table utility. Now if you can somehow look up the Unicode-based codes of e.g. peh and dochashmi hay and then accordingly adjust the mapping in the codes array, this should solve your problem. Let us know if it finally works.
March 25th, 2005 at 9:36 am
->Nabeel: It’s difficult to figure out why curlp released only OpenType version of their fonts while they knew BBC Asiatype is TrueType and addresses huge portions of Pakistani and Indian audience using Windows 98.
Maybe we should ask them to release TrueType versions also. The problem is that curlp seems defunct for quite sometime. They dont even reply the mails. The site has also not been updated.
March 25th, 2005 at 9:41 am
->Nabeel: I have a question. Can UrduEditor use Tahoma if Asiatype is not installed on user’s pc? I am planning to put it on UrduWiki and need this information to write the description.
March 28th, 2005 at 2:58 am
Absolutely great job. How did I miss this earlire?
April 1st, 2005 at 12:09 am
Shirazi: Thanks.
April 4th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
نفیس فانٹس نڈوز ۹۸ پر نہیں چلیں گی۔
April 6th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
I have put together an Urdu keyboard for Mac OS X, based on the one used in WinXP, which you can download from this page (UrduPC.keylayout):
http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/fs/FileSharing9.html
If you have any trouble I can email it.
Since I don’t know Urdu myself, I would welcome anyone willing to test it and provide feedback on errors, desirable improvements, etc. tom@bluesky.org
April 7th, 2005 at 10:25 am
Thanks, Tom.
April 7th, 2005 at 10:31 am
Mac OS X Urdu Keyboard
Tom Gewecke left a comment that he has put together an Urdu keyboard for Mac OS X. To download it, go to his webpage and download UrduPC.keylayout. I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t check it out, but if…
May 17th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
The Urdu Editor’s DLL file seems have problems. I need Urdu font that will be compatible with XP Prof. This font should be able to display on any computer without downloading any font. I created my family website in English and I need to write it in Urdu.
http://www.shaikhsiddiqui.com/
May 18th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Farhan: Tahoma while not pretty is available on all Windows XP machines and has the Urdu characters.
May 25th, 2005 at 6:13 am
I need sindhi tyeping software
May 25th, 2005 at 6:19 am
Kashif: I have plans for incorporating keyboard-mappings to enable editing in other Pakistani local languages. This will take some time however.
May 26th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Kashif: You can use Unipad with a Sindhi keyboard.
June 1st, 2005 at 5:17 am
p[ur](urdu) SabaS. as kam krny ky liy Skria. likn io kwminT ardw miN kiwN noIN dkhai diti hy? miN mwzla ka astmal krta hwN.
June 1st, 2005 at 5:26 am
Chris: Thank you. I have no problem viewing Urdu comments. What configuration are you using? You need to install Urdu support depending upon your operating system. You can find more information on the Urdu Wiki.
July 6th, 2005 at 6:23 am
السلام و علیکم،
آﹸ حضرات مندرجه ذیل ویب سائٹ سے بھی اردو فونٹ، اردو ایڈیٹر اور دیگر ضروری سافٹ ویئر ڈاؤن لوڈ کرسکتے هیں۔
شکریه
http://www.geocities.com/gsmultipublications/fonts.html
January 16th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
hi .. i hav one question.. when i check this on the demo page and den copy smthng after writing.. it comes in the wrong way..
if i write “min yhaN own” i urdu n copy paste it.. it comes like this “own yhaN min”.. can any1 help me on that.. thx