At 13:07 +0000 2005-08-24, Richard Wordingham wrote:

> > 1. Michael designs a Latin-based input system for Vai.
>
>But the church promotes the SIL system instead. (It will probably be
>extended when their Unicode font comes out - at present it's limited
>by their only providing an 8-bit hack font.)

SIL would have to revise theirs to deal with the larger repertoire.
But theirs is much more a transliteration input than mine is.

(Mine puts the deadkey for the L- series on the "l" key, but the R-
series is on "shift-L" because of the glyph relations. So it's QWERTY
and its "alphabetic" in terms of deadkey consonants + vowel
finishers, but it's not entirely a transliteration font. D is on "d";
ND is on "shift-D". DH is on "r", DHH is on "shift-R". EE is on "e",
E is on "q". OO is on "o", O is on "y".

> > 2. Someone designs a Vai-glyph layout for a 47/48-key keyboard that
>> uses dead keys to access all the glyphs.
>
>But no-one publicises it because Michael and SIL have already created
>keyboards.

No one has designed one.

> > 3. Someone designs a Vai-glyph layout for a 47/48-key keyboard that
>> uses shift states to access all the glyphs.
>
>(i) But no-one publicises it because Michael and SIL have already
>created keyboards.

No one has designed one.

>(ii) Applications grab too many of the combinations. I'm not joking -
> aren't alt-gr and shift the only shift keys safely available with
>Windows applications? I think you need a combination of shift states
>and dead keys.

As I have said.

> > 4. Someone designs a really big physical keyboard with a separate key
> > for every glyph.
>
>But such a luxury item doesn't sell.

Such a luxury item won't be manufactured, either, because it won't
sell. And it would never be installed in a laptop.

>Actually, (2) and (3) do face another pitfall - how does one cheaply
>label the keys? (Legible labelling is an issue, too.) I have
>visions of stickers peeling off in the humidity.

You put a chart on the wall and let people learn to type.

> > In particular I don't see why it's such an awful thing for Michael
>to
> > design a Latin-based keyboard for Vai, unless it comes with some
>kind of
>> legal stipulation that the user can never switch to a Vai-glyph
>> keyboard, even if she wants to and one is available.
>
>Because if he doesn't design the glyph-based keyboard, someone else
>will have to?

I have already said that I don't see how you can design a
"glyph-based" keyboard for 340 characters and 48-key hardware.
Please, start sketching one out.
--
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com