Monday, December 14, 2009

How to get the keyboards working on 3.1.2

Follow these steps and let me know if it works.
1. Go to cydia and uninstall all the keyboards that you have installed.
2. Search for ikeyex (choose modify and uninstall the version you have).
3. Reboot your phone.
4. In cydia search and install 'ikeyex 3'.
5. Install the keyboards.
6. Reboot.
7. In settings app you should see ikeyex.
8. Choose mix and match, and then Make.
9. Select the layout of the keyboard, choose input manager as English, and then give a name.
10. Come back and in keyboards (in ikeyex) choose the keyboard (the name you gave).
11. Now fire up any typing app and press the globe button on keyboard to switch.
Note: Easy hindi keyboard will not work, use hindi keyboard instead.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Hindi Keyboard is Back (Beta)... but 'Easy' will have to wait...

Thanks to KennyTM, we are back in business again... and its even simpler... no more need for mobile substrate. All you have to do is

1. Download the following file Hindi or Punjabi
2. Unzip it
3. Move the 8 .keyboard files in following folder
/System/Library/Frameworks/UIKit.framework/
(you can use SSH or iphonebrowser).
4. Then turn the Thai keyboard on in settings and you are good to go.

Note: You will not be able to use the real Thai keyboard by apple. So if you use the Thai keyboard frequently replace the 'Thai' part in keyboard names with any other keyboard in default OS. This problem will be resolved once ikeyex 3.0 is out!!

To remove the keyboard, just delete those 8 files from the system.

There are a few limitations that we already know of... such as
1. Popups and shiftedPopups are not supported.
2. Due to a font problem, some texts may not be shown properly.
3. Text traits (Colors, images and fonts) are not supported (yet)... which means 'easy hindi keyboard' will have to wait.

Other than that it seems to run fine...

Saturday, July 4, 2009

More on OS 3.0

Here are some more things I wanted to say about OS 3.0

1. Apple has provided support for Greek Keyboard in 3.0. It looks pretty much the same as what I had but the good thing is that its in-built. So I would be discontinuing any upgrades or support for the Greek Keyboard. It would still be there in bigboss repository though till he decides to remove it.

2. Now comes the important part on how Apple has chosen to ignore so many Indian users. Just look at the following
(a) 3.0 has got all asian keyboards starting from Chinese, Japanese and all the way to Malay, Thai, etc. but not a single Indic language. Not even Hindi (6% of world population speaks the language).
(b) Even the simplest of Nokia sets available in India has got a Hindi/Regional language texting feature...
(c) No improved support for Indic fonts rendering either... C'mon apple, how much effort does this take ?? And you have plenty of Indian programmers in your teams... still??
(d) What more, Apple is fighting to make jailbreaking illegal too...
I guess that leaves me with just one choice... get a G phone the next time ... ;-)
or you can go to following link and tell Apple to put one for the next OS release

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html


Say 'Hindi Keyboard' in subject and 'Enhancement Request' in feedback type....

Keyboards and OS 3.0

Hey All

iphone OS 3.0 is out and many of you may have upgraded already. You may also have noted that none of my keyboards (hindi, easyhindi, punjabi and greek) work on 3.0. That's because 'ikeyex', the keyboard framework extender by KennyTM isnt compatible with 3.0 yet. He is working on it and it might take some time. Once the 3.0 version is out I will update the keyboards as soon as possible. You can come back here for updates or subscribe directly to his feed at
http://code.google.com/p/networkpx/issues/detail?id=83
The keyboards still work fine with OS 2.2.

Thanks for all the nice and encouraging e-mails :-)

Saturday, April 18, 2009

EasyHindi keyboard for iPhone

Now all main characters supported in one page itself (see screenshots). The active letters are shown as 'black' whereas inactive are shown in 'blue'. Pressing the 'shift' key turns inactive letters to active. So you don't have to search for letters back and forth anymore.



Sunday, March 1, 2009

Punjabi Keyboard for iphone

Punjabi keyboard add-on for the iKeyEx keyboard extender.

Now available in Cydia in BigBoss repository.

An intuitive and easy to use Punjabi Keyboard.
1. The characters are placed in alternate fashion in two layouts which can be toggled using shift key
2. Special characters and numbers can be accessed using 123 key.
3. For typing half-letters, type the letter you want followed by the 'halant' (on the back of 'a'). They may not display as half-letter on iphone but will display properly when read on a computer (i.e. in e-mails).
4. For characters with accent, tap and hold the respective key till the options appear. Some special and rarely used characters are also supported this way.





Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hindi Keyboard 0.0-2

Updated Hindi Keyboard - minor bug fixes
1. Allows you to search user names in Hindi for both SMS and e-mail apps.
2. Works well with Hindi --> English translation in almost all translator apps using Google service.

Thanks for your response and bug reports.

Thinking of making keyboards for other Indic Languages

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Greek Keyboard for iphone

Available in Cydia Now

Greek keyboard add-on for the iKeyEx keyboard extender.

The keyboard uses standard modern Greek keyboard layout and is thus pretty straightforward to use.
For characters with accent, tap and hold the respective key till the options appear.
Special thanks to kennytm for packaging help

Hindi Keyboard for iphone

Available in Cydia Now

Hindi keyboard add-on for the iKeyEx keyboard extender.

An intuitive and easy to use Hindi Keyboard.

1. The characters are placed in alternate fashion in two layouts which can be toggled using shift key, e.g., pressing shift will convert 'ka' to 'kha'; 'ga' to 'gha' and so on.
2. Special characters and numbers can be accessed using 123 key.
3. For typing half-letters, type the letter you want followed by the 'halant' (on the back of 'a'). They may not display as half-letter on iphone but will display properly when read on a computer (i.e. in e-mails).
4. For characters with accent, tap and hold the respective key till the options appear. Some special and rarely used characters are also supported this way.
5. See screenshots for any doubts.
6. To enable go to Settings--> General--> International--> Keyboards and turn on the hindi keyboard (supported on 2.2 only)