Decide what language layouts to include, with or w/o spellers
snomos opened this issue · 3 comments
The following layouts are included in the existing version, with spellers:
- sma
- sme
- smj (NO and SE)
- smn
- sms
The following majority language layouts are also included, for historical reasons (no spellers at present):
- nob (or is it nno, or nor?)
- swe
- fin
No more majority language layouts will be added, the three we have will be kept because we know there are users relying on them.
Scheduled for inclusion in the next release are:
Other possible candidates are:
- crk - speller? After discussions with Antti: No. We'll wait, and test more, both on Android and iOS. Requires that we get the Divvun Dev app into beta shape so that testers can install it.
Other suggestions? Basic criterias for inclusion:
- community contact & interest - there must be users!
- a tested and approved layout
In addition to the present keyboards scheduled for release, I would like to draw our attention to: vro, liv, apu without speller.
As I understand vro is ready to go with the addition of 3 extra letters. The fst still needs work on it, so I am not ready to go full production on the speller at the moment.
The liv keyboard needs the layout updated to correlate with lav. The fst is being developed to correlate with language documentation carried out at the Livonian institute in Riga. Hopefully, we will be ready to go production before this time next year.
The apu keyboard needs to be generated (deviation from a por keyboard: all vowels take tilde, in addition to accute, grave and circumflex, and glottal stop marked with modifier letter apostrophe). The Apurinã keyboard is being developed with the consultation of UFPA in Belém (Amazon languages with fieldwork and studies in language variation, hence the extensive set of keys.) When the speller comes into use is a question of further documentation.
All three will have language and research community users.
The strongest Uralic languages in Russia are mhr, udm. We have a good mhr fst (and could thus have keyboard with speller) for both. I do not know what Jeremy ajd Andrej will say. Then there is mns, where we hmm probably have no keyboard ready. The problem is the communication chain, I think.
This is all good and fine, and all these keyboards and spellers can be good candidates for the release after the upcoming one. But unless these keyboards are:
- tested and proven good
- have a user community contact
they will not be added this time. I instead suggest they are added to the Divvun Dev Keyboard, for more people to test and give feedback.
The goal is to get dev cycles much shorter, especially for layouts, so that there won't go years between releases, but weeks.