Content Development in Indian Languages - Current Status , Available Tools and Future Trends

1. Pramod.R <pramod@mahiti.org> Content Development in Indian Languages - Current Status , Available Tools and Future Trends

2. Scope of the Talk • Current Status of content development in Indian languages • Role of Unicode • Why Linux? • Possible Server & Client side Issues • Demos

3. Current Status of content development in Indian languages I • There are Established Standards or Methods • For storing data (Encoding) – Unicode • For display – OpenType fonts and Phonetic (Itrans) and Keyboard (Inscript) layouts for Input are accepted • State of Indian Language Software is still Chaotic • Most Software use Propreitory Font Encoding to store data

4. Current Status of content development in Indian languages II • Features of the Current System • Handling of Display, Input and Data-Storage is taken care of by the Program and not the OS • Support for Platforms & Functionality is entirely vendor driven • Input Methods (Phonetic, Keyboard), available fonts, sort functionality are usually tightly integrated with the Program

5. Role of Unicode I • Definition • Universal character set supporting most written scripts • Advantages • One Standard to encode Indian Languages • Simple design makes importing to and from other encoding easier • Allows Input Methods, Rendering Mechanism, Search and Sort Methods to be Independent

6. Role of Unicode II • Disadvantages • Classic Chicken and Egg Problem • Support on Older Windows Platforms flakey for some languages • Lack of Awareness • Support for Unicode alone is not enough for supporting Indian Languages • requires support for rendering OpenType Fonts or an alternate Mechanism

7. Why Choose Linux for your Content Development Needs? I • Availability of Good Editing tools, Content Management Systems and Databases • Extensive Unicode Support • Extensive Internationalization • Definition • Allows content to be localized without much effort or altering the Software itself • Most applications support translations of their User Interface using Gettext or a similar mechanism

8. Issues to take care of while developing content – Client Side • Determine Platform used by Target Audience • If you cannot use Unicode • Try to limit it to the Client Side • Use ISCII to ease conversion • Use font encoding but really, as a last resort • Use an existing font encoding standard

9. Issues to take care of while developing content – Server Side • Use Unicode • Will ease migration on the client side in the future • Search and Sort functionalities are easier to provide • Easier to convert to and from any encoding • Most Databases support Unicode out of the box • Easier to manage

10. Tools To Create Content (Demos) • OpenOffice Office Suite • Indian Language Supported in OO 1.1 • Scribus • Powerful Layouting Tool • Indian Language Support through QT 3.2 • Kile • Editor to ease content Development in Latex • Indian Language Support through UCS Module

11. Tools To Publish and Manage Content (Demos) • Blosxom • Simple to use blog • BabelKit • Toolkit for multi-lingual Sites using Php with any Database • Databases that support UTF-8 • Mysql • Postgres

12. Content Development with Plone (Demos) • CMFPlone • Content Management Framework built on top of Zope • Uses Gettext for UserInterface • Configurable workflow • Additional Functionality with “Products” • CMFLocalizer – Gettext like Functionality • CMFOODocument - Publish directly with OpenOffice • Epoz – WYSIWYG Editor