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Sinhala Keyboard Basic Help

Operation

Mouse click on a key (button) in the on-screen keyboard generates the character in a particular location (cursor position or highlighted range) in the textarea.

System Requirements

  • Given that the application runs via an internet browser, a functioning browser program is essential (internet connection is not required). The functionality and the appearance of the program will vary with the browser and version. Internet Explorer 8+ and comparable browsers should enable the application to function as intended. Earlier versions may produce none or partial functionality.
  • System requirements in terms of the speed, memory etc. for the application itself is insignificant compared to the requirement of the browser program and Sinhala language support.
  • The layout of the keyboard was arranged with a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Display settings of a lower resolution is likely to produce irregular results. In such cases consider an adjustment of the browser window zoom feature and workspace setup in the Sinhala Keyboard.

Sinhala Language Support

In order to view the Sinhala script on the on-screen keyboard and textarea, the computer must have Sinhala language support. MS Windows Vista and subsequent releases of Windows have Sinhala language support. However, Xp and older version of windows require Sinhala language support (Sinhala Unicode) to be installed from an external source. Sinhala Unicode support kits are available to download from sources such as:

http://www.siyabas.lk/sinhala_how_to_install.html

Sinhala script keyboard arrangement

  • Characters in the second row (with several exceptions) can be considered the vowels in the Sinhala alphabet.
  • Characters in the third and fourth row are consonants.
  • The fourth and fifth row contains characters that are termed as the signs (or vowel signs) of the Sinhala script. Signs are attached to consonants to produce vocalic variations.

Other keys on the keyboard

  • Clear All – Deletes all content in a textarea.
  • Backspace – Deletes the previous character (from position of the cursor) in the textarea.
  • Space – Creates an empty space in the textarea.

Typing in Sinhala

  • Vowels are typed in as a single character. Signs generally are not conjoined to vowels.
  • Consonants should be typed before the sign even if the sign appears prior to the consonant in the sequence of characters ( e.g. ක then ෙ produces කෙ).
  • Special signs, ්‍ර (or ්ර) and ්‍ය (or ්ය) should be typed straight after the consonant. Additional signs can be inserted thereafter.
  • Certain sign keys produce varying character shapes based on the attached consonant ( e.g. ම + ු → මු whereas ක + ු → කු and ක + ් → ක් whereas ම + ් → ම් )

NB: Sinhala keyboard does not contain all the characters used in the Sinhala script. However, attempts were made to ensure that most frequently used characters in the alphabet are available. Those that do not appear could be inserted into the textarea by changing the language settings of the physical keyboard and pressing the appropriate key.

Menu Features

Workspace setup

Sinhala keyboard allows you to resize the main textarea and change the font size in the textarea. Simply replace default values and click "Ok" to change settings.

  • Width – The default width of the text area is 1000px. It can be increased (e.g. 1500px) or decreased (e.g. 500px) as an amount in pixels or another appropriate unit of measurement (e.g. 500em, 50% etc.).
  • Height – Change the height of the textarea from the default (200px) by replacing the value to a desired height in an appropriate unit of measurement (px, em).
  • Font size – Is the size of the font in the textarea . It is not the size of the font that would appear once pasted to a html or word processing document (e.g. MS Word document). The option was created to allow the user to view the content at a preferred font size.
  • Fixed keyboard and/or menu - Checking the selection box(s) locks the keyboard and/or menu in to a fixed position on the screen.
  • Default button – Returns editable values back to default settings.

Sinhala keyboard also enables you to set background colours and images (i.e. wallpaper) for the app. There are 20 predefined colours and 20 preset images (internet connection required) which can be selected from the menus. If desired you can specify colour (web colour) or image file as the background for the app.

  • To set a colour as the background
    • Click Advanced button in the workspace menu (submenu should pop up).
    • Select colour option. It should induce a dropdown menu to appear.
    • Select a colour from the dropdown menu. Alternatively select custom from the dropdown menu and specify the desired colour. Colours can be specified in any of the acceptable forms of web colours (i.e. English words, hexadecimal, decimal).
    • Click "Ok" in the menu to apply the selected (or specified) colour as the apps background. Clicking the cancel button reverts the background to its original settings.
    • To save the applied background colour, save the webpage (app) via your browser. Option to save (save as) the webpage should appear in top menu and/or context menu. Ensure the page is saved as a "webpage complete". IE with its default settings may not allow you to save changes to html documents (you can modify IE settings via tool → internet options). Subsequent re-running of the app should retain the changes made to its background.
  • To set an image as the background (wallpaper)
    • Click Advanced button in the workspace menu (submenu should pop up).
    • Select image option. It should induce a dropdown menu to appear.
    • Select a theme from the dropdown menu. The associated image should appear as background of the app (internet connection is required).
    • Alternatively you could nominate an image file located in you hard drive and set it as the background for the app. It can be achieved by selecting the custom option from the dropdown menu. From the file input (textbox and 'Browse/Choose file'button) navigate to its location and select the desired file. Enusure the nominated image file is located in the same folder as the app. Alternate path (absolute or relative) must be manually entered into the html code of the app.
      • Current website also contains a selection of downloadable background images (click here).
      • File formats jpeg, gif and png are generally acceptable in all major browsers. Certain browser may accept other popular image formats.
    • Click "Ok" in the menu to apply the selected (or specified) colour as the apps background. Clicking the cancel button reverts the background to its original settings.
    • To save the applied background colour, save the webpage (app) via your browser. Option to save (save as) the webpage should appear in top menu and/or context menu. Ensure the page is saved as a "webpage complete". IE with its default settings may not allow you to save changes to html documents (you can modify IE settings via tool → internet options). Subsequent re-running of the app should retain the changes made to its background.
  • To remove background colour/image
    • Click Advanced button in the workspace menu (submenu should pop up).
    • Select none option.
    • Click "Ok" in the menu to apply the changes. Clicking the cancel button reverts the background to its original settings.
    • To save the applied background colour, save the webpage (app) via you browser. Option to save (save as) the webpage should appear in top menu and/or context menu. Ensure the page is saved as a "webpage complete". IE with its default settings may not allow you to save changes to html documents (you can modify IE settings via tool → internet options). Subsequent re-running of the app should retain the changes made.

Undo/Redo

The undo button can retrieve content from up to 10 previous actions. The redo button returns the content back to the original from an undo step.