> From: Marco Cimarosti [mailto:marco.cimarosti@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 2:29 AM


> > I have read many Tamil lists and have read that they have not
> > accepted typing in order of phonetic sequence.
>
> That's good news to me (not so for Microsoft, but who cares). Anyway,
> whether visual or phonetic sequence is used, that has nothing to do

with

> Chinese-like IME's.
>
> Tamil has only about 50 basic signs (letters, matras, etc.), so it

makes

> perfectly sense to assign one letter per key, as it is for English or

any

> other alphabet-like keyboard.

The ratio between the number of characters or character sequences to be
generated and the number of keys is a strong correlate for familiar
input methods, in which IMEs are used only for CJK, which require a
large ratio. That is not a defining characteristic of input method
editors, however. Rather, the defining characteristic is that there is
indirect entry path involving an intermediate textual representation,
requiring a special UI for showing the processing of that intermediate
representation.

If an input method for Tamil uses some special UI element that shows
some intermediate text representation that is processed prior to
entering the final text, then it would be, by definition, an IME. But
otherwise, it would not be an IME.

In particular, if an input method happened to allow entry of a i-kaar
(say) followed by entry a consonant with the effect that, upon entry of
the consonant, the resulting encoded sequence were consonant + i-kaar,
and all of this were done directly inline without any separate window,
then that would be a visual-order input method but would not be an IME.

> Windows
> allows keyboard drivers written by third parties, so everyone is

allowed

> to
> ship an IME for Tamil or for English.

An important point to be noted.



Peter Constable