New Hindi layout #313

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:16:14Z

Hi! First thank you for creating/maintaining a great keyboard!

Next my credentials: I'm an American (native English speaker) learning Hindi. I have a few friends from Goa, India who are fluent in Hindi, and have given me advice on this layout.

Some misc things:

I suggest we change it from "Hindi" to "Devanagari". Devanagari is the name of the alphabet/set of characters which Hindi is written in. But Devanagari is more general as some other languages (Nepali, Marathi, Konkani, ...) are written in Devanagari.
This layout contains all characters from the Devanagari unicode block https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_(Unicode_block) as well as borrowed punctuation https://blogs.transparent.com/hindi/punctuation-in-hindi/. I compared it to GBoard's Hindi layout, and this layout should be able to type all characters from there.
I looked at frequency counts https://www.sttmedia.com/characterfrequency-hindi and attempted to place high-frequency characters as a tap (instead of swipe). Although this is not an improvement over the previous layout, as the previous layout also has frequent characters as a tap
I've been typing on this layout for about a month now, and this is what I've converged on as my "endgame"
I removed shift as it isn't used in Devanagari script (and also caps lock)

Some possible downsides of this layout:

I removed some of the ASCII characters in the previous layout (like [, ], (, ..., #, &). One of my hindi-fluent friends said these characters are never used in the language, besides borrowed characters https://blogs.transparent.com/hindi/punctuation-in-hindi/ which I did include. Despite this I see your point about these characters being useful for passwords. I did create a version where I crammed in many ASCII symbols, but then the layout looked cluttered overall. I guess it is a preference, and my preference is the cleaner look (without these symbols). I did leave some empty spaces in some keys if you want to re-add these ASCII characters
My layout doesn't contain any conjunct consonants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari_conjuncts (except for like 4 of the most frequent ones). To be clear, this layout is still able to type these, just with more keystrokes (example: न + ् + य = न्य).
I didn't include any loc characters.

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:21:07Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<keyboard>
+  <row>
+    <key shift="0.35" width="0.9" key0="क" key1="ख" key2="घ" key3="ङ"  key4="ग"/>


The biggest difference between my layout and the current Hindi layout is the following:

The devanagari characters are organized by mouth/tongue movements https://omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm . So for example ग=g, क=k (these are similar tongue movements). I've grouped all similar-tongue-movement characters into the same key

The previous layout has some of these characters grouped together in the same key, but not always

I talked to one of my hindi-speaking friends, and he said that this grouping (by tongue movements) is the best way to organize the alphabet (and thus also a keyboard layout)

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:21:51Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

+    <key              width="0.9" key0="च" key1="छ" key2="झ" key3="ञ"  key4="ज"/>
+    <key              width="0.9" key0="ट" key1="ठ" key2="ढ" key3="ण"  key4="ड"/>
+    <key              width="0.9" key0="त" key1="थ" key2="ध" key3="न"  key4="द"/>
+    <key              width="0.9" key0="प" key1="फ" key2="भ" key3="म"  key4="ब"/>


another example: म=m, फ=f, ब=b, प=p (these are all lip-movements)

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:23:41Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<keyboard>
+  <row>


This row contains only the the consonants https://omniglot.com/language/articles/devanagari.htm

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:24:17Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

+    <key              width="0.9" key0="र" key1="ज्ञ" key2="ल" key3="य"  key4="व"/>
+    <key              width="0.9" key0="ह" key1="श" key2="ळ" key3="स"  key4="ष"/>
+  </row>
+  <row>


this row contains only the devanagari vowels https://omniglot.com/language/articles/devanagari.htm

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:27:08Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

+    <key              width="0.9" key0="ह" key1="श" key2="ळ" key3="स"  key4="ष"/>
+  </row>
+  <row>
+    <key shift="0.35" width="0.9" key0="ा" key1="अ" key2="आ"/>


I shifted to make it easier to swipe up&left, down&left on the first key (and similarly for the last key)

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:27:51Z

res/values/arrays.xml

@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@
    <item>Bone</item>
    <item>ЙЦУКЕН (Українська)</item>
    <item>বাংলা</item>
-    <item>हिन्दी</item>
+    <item>देवनागरी (हिंदी)</item>


Regarding the spelling of Hindi https://forum.unilang.org/viewtopic.php?t=10200

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:31:00Z

srcs/juloo.keyboard2/KeyModifier.java

@@ -281,7 +281,62 @@ private static String apply_fn_char(char c)
      case 'ס': return "segol";
      case 'ב': return "hataf_segol"; // reduced segol
      case 'צ': return "tsere";
-      // other
+      // Devanagari symbols


So I'm using the fn key to allow a second "layer". Before, I tried to squeeze all the symbols into a single layer (kinda like the previous hindi layout), but I didn't like how congested/squeezed it turned out.

So for my layout, the original, non-fn layer contains the most-used characters, and the fn layer contains seldom used characters

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T01:39:30Z

res/xml/devanagari.xml

+    <key key0="ं" key1="ॐ" key2="ऽ" key3="ः" key4="&quot;"/>
+    <key key0="।" key1="," key2=";" key3="!" key4="\?"/>
+    <key key0="़" key1="॰" key2="०" key3="-" key4="॒"/>
+    <key key0="५" key1="१" key2="३" key3="७" key4="९" key5="४" key6="६" key7="२" key8="८"/>


I wasn't really sure how to add the numbers, so I just threw them in a number pad

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T03:35:34Z

Julow

Thanks for your great work! The layout looks nice and well researched.

@Raj9039852537 Do you still use this app ?

In case someone wants the previous "hindi" layout back, how should we call it ?

You need to change the default_layout of the hindi subtype (hi_IN) in res/xml/method.xml. If that makes sense, you can also add support for the languages you mentionned (Nepali, Marathi, Konkani).

I removed some of the ASCII characters in the previous layout (like [, ], (, ..., #, &).

That's not a problem. The "secondary layout" option can be used to bring a layout suitable for passwords.

lrvideckis · 2023-03-09T20:41:05Z

In case someone wants the previous "hindi" layout back, how should we call it ?

Good point - give users the choice of which layout. There are probably users who are used to the current Hindi layout. I followed the naming pattern of your Hebrew layouts.

Raj9039852537 · 2023-03-10T04:13:07Z

@Raj9039852537 Do you still use this app ?

Yes, I am using it.

As for naming the layout I suggested is inscript layout used vastly in PC.

hi_IN subtype

Providing old layout is usefuI for peoples who are more comfertable with that layout.

Also if it is possible, a choice to edit layout at runtime (just like Multiling O Keyboard ) will be an awesome addition.

Julow

Thanks!

lrvideckis · 2023-10-14T17:05:41Z

I just wanted to post an update about this: I still use this layout daily mainly to text my Indian friends.

I did make one tweak:

I changed ; to * so that I can correct my previous text. And I noticed I never use ; (or ,) symbols anyways.

Finally I did write a blog about this https://www.lrvideckis.com/blog/2023/08/21/devanagari_keyboard.html

Julow · 2023-10-17T22:02:05Z

Thanks for the update. Could you open a new PR to update the layout for everyone ?

New Hindi layout

b443bee

lrvideckis commented Mar 9, 2023

View reviewed changes

lrvideckis added 2 commits March 8, 2023 22:00

Didn't mean to remove this comment

25811da

Wrong spot

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Julow approved these changes Mar 9, 2023

View reviewed changes

Update default layout for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali

741e753

Add back previous Hindi layout

56d735e

lrvideckis marked this pull request as draft March 9, 2023 21:09

lrvideckis added 2 commits March 9, 2023 15:15

Remove unwanted file

ff37410

Consistent naming for Devanagari layouts

d11e5bb

lrvideckis requested a review from Julow March 9, 2023 21:43

lrvideckis marked this pull request as ready for review March 9, 2023 21:44

Make previous layout the default

b8c5ecb

Julow approved these changes Mar 11, 2023

View reviewed changes

Julow merged commit 6aaa497 into Julow:master Mar 11, 2023

lrvideckis deleted the hindi_layout_symbols branch March 11, 2023 21:36

Julow mentioned this pull request May 1, 2023

[fr] telugu keyboard #355

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New Hindi layout #313

New Hindi layout #313

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Julow commented Oct 17, 2023

New Hindi layout #313

New Hindi layout #313

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