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Submissions/Key Curry: Multilingual Typing Made Easy

From Wikimania 2012 • Washington, D.C., USA

This is a rejected submission for Wikimania 2012.

Submission no.

642

Title of the submission

Key Curry: Multilingual Typing Made Easy

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)

Presentation

Author of the submission

Edward Trager

E-mail address

ed.trager@gmail.com

Username

Edtrager

Country of origin

USA

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

University of Michigan

Personal homepage or blog

Unifont.org

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Key Curry is a new HTML5-based software component that I have been developing to allow users to easily type Latin and non-Latin world language orthographies, IPA phonetics, and special symbols in web-based forms and rich internet applications. The system is quite flexible and supports several different keymap formats as well as complex input method engines (IMEs) required for East Asian languages and other specialized input methods for entering symbols and specialized phonetics. Over 130 keymaps and input methods are currently available.

In addition to supporting major world languages and orthographies, Key Curry makes it extremely easy for language advocates and web developers to provide support for the orthographies of minority languages, especially the many languages that are not currently supported by the major operating system vendors. The implications and possible use cases in global multilingual collaborative efforts such as Wikipedia/Wikimedia are many. Wikipedia already supports more languages than are currently available in CLDR (see Gerard Meijssen's Wikimania presentation "Supporting Languages, all of them"), and Wikipedia contributors often need to be able to type multiple languages and phonetics within individual documents. Key Curry makes typing multiple languages seem like child's play.

Because Key Curry provides everything in a web-based environment, there is no need to install complex software on one's laptop or workstation. Developers can incorporate Key Curry into web applications with a few lines of JavaScript code. In many cases, a language advocate can write and begin testing a new keymap-based input method for use in Key Curry in a matter of hours.

Key Curry uses a user interface framework I developed called Gladiator Components and the popular jQuery JavaScript library as a foundation and works in modern browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, and Opera. Thanks to recently-incorporated HTML5 localStorage technology, Key Curry now remembers and retains the most recently used key maps and IMEs on the client, thus eliminating the need to re-fetch commonly-used data on subsequent sessions. Additional HTML5 technologies such as web workers are being investigated to improve the future user experience.

Track
  • Technology and Infrastructure
Length of presentation/talk
25 Minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?

Possibly

Slides or further information (optional)

Additional information -albeit slightly out-of-date- is available here: Key Curry Documentation. New updated links will be posted shortly!

Special request as to time of presentations


Interested attendees

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  1. Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Add your username here.