--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> Everyone, especially the computer guys, keeps telling you that

script

> typology has nothing whatsoever to do with input methods.

Actually the 'computer guys' kept telling me that the unicode layer
and the editing layer are different. The codepoints and the input
and display are different. Particularly Marco, on June 3, (thank
you, and to many others on and off the list) explained that Indic
input has "a sort of 'syllabic editing' functionally very similar to
a Chinese input method." So that the abugida model has been used
for assigning codepoints and the syllabic model for input method.

At the time I could not see this display because Office 2000
(western edition) doesn't have a USP10.ddl file. It wasn't until
someone finally contacted me off the list and explained these files
that I 'got it'. Uniscribe mediates between the Unicode layer, the
assigned codes, and the input and display. Now I can go back and
reread what the 'computer guys' said and understand it. I just
sometimes wonder why the 'computer guys' didn't tell me about the
USP10 on day 2 instead of day 40. I guess because this was supposed
to be 'behind the scenes' - oh well.

The remaining problem is that I don't know why Cathy Wissink of
Microsoft was so adamant in saying that Indic languages don't need
an IME. The IME's are now being developed by Bhashaindia so I guess
someone was convinced of the necessity. Since input in order of
visual sequence is not available for Unicode fonts at this time no
input method has become popularly accepted other than
transliteration. This was told to me by a 'computer guy'. This is
really the remaining problem. Can the syllabic IME, version one, now
distributed be developed into a useful input method or not. What
would an appropriate input method for Tamil be?

Suzanne McCarthy