came across this post is there any new updates please inform and all the links on the post is inactive except mpp.org.np.

please provide more information on this proposed keylayout.

Thanking you.

On Friday, February 14, 2003 at 8:44:14 PM UTC+5:45, GyaNeX wrote:

Title: Saral Nepali KeyBoard (GyaNeX) for Unicode Environment
Refer:[
Join eGroups dedicated to NepaliKeyBoard: http://www.eGroups.com/groups/NepaliKeyBoard/

Domain URL:
http://www.e-nepal.org/

A relevant Geocities Home Page:
http://www.geocities.com/nepalikeyboard/ ]

Note:
(a) MPP KeyBoard: Refers to the Unicode Environment Keyboard and
relevant software published at website http://www.mpp.org.np/ .
(b) GyaNeX: The enhanced Keyboard designed by G. Pokharel

Objectives and goals:
Propose a most simplfied keyboard and key combinations to type Nepali
in computers or other electronic systems in minimum time without any
mental and physical stresses. The typed texts should be easy to store, transfer, and pass in any electronic media or via internet and it
should also be able to be printed or published without any possibility
of loss of typed data, information and styles/outlook. Ultimate
objective of this keyboard is to unify and standarize all forms of
computer or electronic based nepali typing into a single and most
simplified typing keyboard, to be used by any Nepali or any person who
can read and write Nepali Language.

Typing based on the proposed keyboard should free from need of formal
typing training at typing institute, especially, for those whose
profession or purpose of using computer or electronic media is not to
be a typist, but, their purpose is just a daily fun and message
transfer.

Thus, ultimately the positions of keys and their combinations should
be learnt and remembered by next generation kids without any need of special/formal lession or classroom teaching. Nepal should make a goal
of making email communication and access to internet to each kids who
were or will be borned in the 21st century and they must have access
to computer and electronic media by the time they leave high school
and this proposed keyboard should be considered as a first step
towards this goal.

Note: [The author of this proposal expects 100% Nepali kids should be attending schools by 2010AD. The author also expects the current
education system should be changed to free for all, and Grade of a Kid
should be based on age of the kid, not based on the current exam
system, and it should be true when the education cost is covered from
Taxes. As long as the quality in the public school is concerned, it
should have different methods. When 100% student go to school, we
should not worry about scarcity of good students for higher studies.]

Finally, we do hope that the other community languages used in Nepal,
will adopt similar trend in standarizing the keyboard for their use,
so that the kids in those community can switch to standard Nepali
(main stream), standard English (main stream) and their community
langauge keyboard without any mental and physical stresses. The
proposed keyboard should also be a benchmark towards developing such community language based keyboards in future.

The last but not least goal of this proposal is to develope necessary infrastructures (software and hardware) to support and fulfill these aforementioned goals and objectives.

REQUIREMENTS AND METHODOLOGIES:
Simplified Positioning of KeyBoard Keys w.r.t. basic Nepali Characters
should satisfy following requirements:

(1) all basic characters should have individual keystrokes such that a
novice "Lekhana Padhana Janne" Nepali can remember the key positions
in keyboard. So, a person who does not know, REF, OKAR, IKAR or KHUTTA
TANNE RULES also should be able to send his message, eg. the old day
joke: Kha-Ra-Cha-Na-Pa-Tha-La-Ta-Bha-Ka-Ma-Ra-La.

(2) Minimize to many "IF THEN ELSEIF ELSE " clauses. i.e. there should
be simple rules such that no one is required to remember the
exceptions "APABAD".

(3) all half characters should start with its order same as in hand
written form, so that no one will be mentally or physically stressed
to remember the sequences.

(4) The proposed keyboard's key positions will be positioned as close
to the conventional Remington Typewriter as possible. The keys on
first three rows that is in normal mode (SHIFT KEY RELEASED MODE).
i.e. Ba-Ka-Ma-Aa-Na Sa-Pi-Wo-Ja and the keys on rows above and below
this middle rows.

(5) As much as possible, the most used special non-alphanumeric
characters should have positions same as in English keyboard,
including numerical keys., e.g. comma, semi-colon, round bracket (parentheses) full stop, question mark, plus and minus, to equal sign.

(6) The switching from English keyboard to Nepali Keyboard should be
as simple as possible, and its already set and all designers should
include the standard method. i.e. ALT-SHIFT key strokes.

(7) The mixing of Nepali and English including other Nepali Community language fonts should be easy and convenient, and also text
formatting.

(8) (a) Some softwares and web-based typing [Preferably Java.Class
embedded HTML pages] should be finally developed in order to transfer
all texts written in the well known existing True Type Fonts. The
purpose of this is to ensure that Nepali texts can be ready anywhere, especially, in CyberCafes and Public Linraries, where installation of particular Nepali font is not possible.

(b) There should be an easier typing tutor. IF MPP.ORG.NP is willing
to enhance the keyboard as proposed in GyaNeX keyboard or similar to
it, then, it can be used by kids and adults who want to master the
typing based on electronic typing technique.

PROPOSED KEYBOARD:

Preamble:
The idea of proposed keyboard comes from the recent announcement of
Unicode Environment based Nepali Keyboard proposed by
http://www.mpp.org.np/.
The keyboard will be referred here-in-after as MPP Keyboard (The
author of this proposal had already proposed a representative name to MPP.ORG.NP it be named as MP2NeX).

The keyboard has been found to be very good attempt to standarize the
Nepali keyboard and key positions, based on the MPP KeyBoard, The
author of this proposal has tried to come up with a modified, enhanced
and most simplified (based on his personal belief) Nepali Keyboard Key Positions and
named as GyaNeX: SARAL NEPALI KEYBOARD Version 1.0 .

Public Platform/Forum for Discussion:
The proposed keyboard and key positions are open for public
discussions and debate. The discussion forum will be started at http://www.eGroups.com/groups/NepaliKeyBoard/ .

Anyone who can write and publish his/her idea, feedback and opinions
on this lasting national interest topics are invited. All are free to
join and leave the forum.

The forum http://www.eGroups.com/groups/NepaliKeyBoard/ should be
taken as a platform dedicated to achieve the aforementioned goals and objectives.

Target Professionals and peoples:

1. Typists: Typists who have positive attitude to learn and work with conventional as well as proposed keyboard exclusively designed for
computer and electronic typing.

2. Software Developers or Programmers.

3. Language Specialists. e.g Nepali. Character sequences and key
positions on the keyboard.

4. Statisticians: The language specialists should be supported by Statisticians. They can study on statistical pattern of characters and combinations to minimize errors and stresses.

5. Psychologists. The feed back related to mental stress on keyboard
key positions and finding the keys.

6. Economists: The speedy typing versus simplification on memorization
of key positions. Cost compromisation.

7. Mechanics: Finger Combinations and stress on fingers. All fingers
should share typing such that statistically all fingers are stressed
equally. The mechanics should also think of time loss between key combinations and avoid error due to ineffective key combinations. e.g
should also use the PERT and CPM knowledge, to minimize the cost
editing the texts at the end of typing. Statisticians and Economist
should be consulted to find cost of every error.

8. International Relations: Those who work in internal environment
where foreigners also work and learn Nepali language, e.g. have spouse
of foreign national, they should give feedback on their expectation on
the proposed keyboard, so that a foreigner who knows basic Nepali read
and write, can communicate with the help of proposed keyboard.

9. KeyBoard (Hardware) Manufactures. If we can have a standard Nepali Keyboard, the author hopes that we can have home edition of Nepali
keyboard
that can be purchased by any Nepali for ease in typing Nepali. It can
open a new business opportunity to Hardware Manufacturers. Well, even keyboard skin manufacturing can be a good idea.

10. WebGurus and WebAdministrators: Website designers and Server administrators. The internet security is the prime issue in this 21st century. The ultimate aim of this keyboard is to transfer, store and
pass data via cyberspace, thus, the special keys and their presence in
any web or email can be a big threat to internet security and the
author expects the input from WebGurus and WebAdhikaris. This will
help to avoid trimming of keys and securing the original information
passed without any distortion and loss. In order to fulfill this
requirement, the author of this proposal thinks that all most all
special characters should be freed from Nepali Characters.

11. General Public: The ultimate users of this proposed keyboard
should participate and discuss on the key positions. They should think
that they belong all professionals mentioned in Category 1-10.

Proposed Keyboard: GyaNeX: Key Positions and basic reasoning behind
the key positions.

1. (a) The Proposed keyboard is as close to the Remington Keyboard as possible in ShiftKey Released Mode. The author does not feel any
special need
on modifying the old GOLD setting, exceptions to Patalo Sa and Ra. The position of these two characters should be freed and moved to some
other locations [as mentioned below]. The authors believe the SHIFT
KEY RELEASED MODE in conventional Remington keyboard is the best and
widely used keyboard and it will not have much complain from current
Typists.

(b) The "puchhar"(I express my sincere apology, for the inability to
write the correct name of the key strokes) i.e. used to create "pha"
or "Jha " or dirgha "UU" have been removed. In MPP keyboard, okar and
oukar have separate key strokes, and the author thinks that a careful programming can retain the conventional method of typing okar and
oukar e.g. aakar+ekar and aakar + aikar, respectively.

2. SHIFT-KEY PRESSED MODE: Following logics were thought behind the
key positioning in Shift-Key Pressed Mode:

(a) The key that has Mm in english key board position has "Ra" in
normal mode and "Pha" in shift mode. For some years, I want to propose
to have "Ra" positioned at two places i.e. old "/ in English keyboard"
and proposed new position.

Thus, these two important character functions are placed at
conveninently accessible place, and exploited the redundant key in
SHIFT KEY RELEASED mode of Conventional Remington keyboard. It is
easier to remember. After some years, i.e. once the typists gradually
get used to with this proposed keyboard, we can release "/" as be used
as in English Keyboard. I propose the 2010.01.01 AD be the date when
"Ra" to be finally and permanentaly moved to proposed new position
i.e. "m" in english keyboard.

(b) All character joining and don't-join halfs, om-kar, chandra-bindu,
khutta katne, and the key required to generate KRA, KHRA e.g. in
Bakhra, Bokra, ....
are positioned on the main row where fingers rest in statice mode.

The reason behind their positioning in this middle row is because the
absence of requirement of separate half characters in this proposed electronic keyboard. Thus, all half characters are required to be
generated by combining keys after key stroks of main characters. Thus,
the half characters
required to be produced as fast as possible. This requires them to be
most accessible to fingers and thus, the proposed positions of half or special strokes validates.

(c) Jha-Ya-Ta-Tha-da-dha-ana-ya are placed in the row having english
keyboard characters: UYTREWQ. Some of these characters were moved top row(that has numerical key) to this row, and it frees the top row's
special characters.
With this combinations the half characters associated with this
characters are also easy to produce. e.g. Bhattarai's tta is easy to
create. In this case, the right "kanchi aula" keeps on pressing the
shift key and left hand fingers can be used to create the most of the
half characters. The right hand keys are having minimum half
characters, thus, the left hand is assigned with high responsibility
to create half characters associated to alphabatical characters in
Nepali. While right hand is assigned with aa-ii-uu-e-oo-ou annexing characters.

(d) "patti" ko tta that was position under TRA i.e. "=Q" was found to
be redundant in this proposed key board under Unicode environment.
Thus, was replaced by ANA and in this row the keys are placed as
mentioned in 2(c)i.e. Jha-Ya-Ta-Tha-da-dha-ana-ya in opposite order
starting UYTREWQ. This order was kept easy for general public who know alphabatical order very well, but, can not remeber the key positions
so well. For their convenience too, the order was maintained but,
starting U. The reason is to free stress on Pointing Fingers and also
on Kanchi Aula. Jha and Goru-singhe Ya occupy U and Y keys, thus
release stress on Pointing finger (because Jha and Goru Singhe Ya are
not that frequently used in Nepali), and similarly, the Kanchi Aula
that has to press shift key frequently is relieved from stress, by
assigning its position at Q (in conventional keyboard: Tta: e.g. in
Satta).

(e) Top most row is kept as in original english keyboard, thus,
completely frees mental stress.

(f) The "ii" and "uu" i.e. dirgha "i" and "u" is proposed to be typed
by "u" +
"ukar: let it be either way: u + hraswa or dirgha ukar", and
similarly, ii can be created by either way: "i" + ref in (karkee) or
iikar in kii (either one: hrswa or dirgha). Since its just a matter of programming, and the author of this proposal suggests this is not a
big deal to a professional programmer.

3. Bottom Most row in Shif-key Pressed Mode:

(a) This row is almost overhauled. The question mark in the english
keyboard is kept same for Nepali too. Unfotunately, MPP Keyboard
requires a lot of Alt-Shift key combinations to type comma,
questionmark. Its overstressing the users, especially, general public
who will use it not so frequently. As the key combination rule
suggests "RU" as redundant key, and question mark was adjusted.

(b) GHA was placed under moto sha i.e. at upper case "V" position.
"Gya" is positioned at upper case "B", so that it also relieves stress
on pointer fingers. "ng" (naak thople ng) was placed at upper case
"N". The idea is to release the pressure on pointing fingers. The
"OM", that was placed on MPP Keyboard at uppercase "V" has been moved
to occupy "&" sign, as "&" is very rarely of use in Nepali context.

(c) The Devanagari Keyboard was initially introduced for indian use
and adopted by Nepal. Thus, Indians have "ha" at the end of each
sentence and
it is equivalent to Nepali "CHHA". Unfortunately, indians don't much
have use of "CHHA" as compared to the use of "CHHA" in Nepali
language, and they had positioned it on top most row. In order to make
it useful in Nepali keyboard, I have proposed it be in same key as HA,
thus, Remington's HYA was removed
and replaced by CHHA. "Hya" can be created by combining other keys,
thus, its redundant to directly allocate as keystroke key to "hya".

(d) The reason to find "GYA" in keyboard at bottom most row was to put
all alphabets in lower 3 rows and free top most row. This also
releases the english special characters, thus, top row remains close
to english keyboard.

4. You can find other keys also newly positioned.
(a) The author proposes to create the "||" type of full stop (purna
biram as used in Kabita etc) be created by "|" + "joining key" + "|" combinations. What "techno phobia" peoples should understand is that
the keyboard is not a direct key strokes as in Remington typewriter we
used in real world till now, its just an interface and there is a
BLACK BOX (Virtual Machine as in Java Class) Processor that transfers
the key cominations to create unicode fonts. Thus, there should be no
panic from common users who can not understand the inside details of
Black Box : Virtual Machine.

(b) Similarly, the author suggests the abbreviation purpose small
circle (not the zero, but, smaller than this one) be created by "0" + "joining" + "0" characters. Similarly, semicolon be created by joining
"." + "," dot followed by comma. As dot never follows comma, this rule
might help those who desperately need semicolon. This rule can be used
until we finally move "sa" to proposed position at "z", by 2010.01.01.

(c) "s" key used on Sanskrit and in poems (?) that is now placed at
"A" can be used to create special characters. The author of this
proposal has developed a web based software (to be published later)
where he uses it to for various purposes.

(d) The author propose "#" (hash or sharp key) be used to type an
english character immediately followed after "#" e.g. #a embeds a
inside Nepali characters in Unicode environment. Similarly, to write semicolon, the typist can insert it by typing #; thus, it minimizes
the ALT-SHIFT switching, and relieves mental and physical stress on commoners. Well, the hash can itself be typed, if followed by #, i.e.
## is printed in screen as #, thus, double typing of 2n times will
require to produce n times #.

(e) The Author of this proposal also tried to insert english words and sentences by enclosing them in e.g. I Love You and similarly, Nepali
in different True Type Fonts were successfully inserted when enclosed
in ... , well it requires a box to set default TTF fonts. Once this
TTF font is set, the old typists can type things in Nepali. Those
special characters that can not be found in Unicode fonts, but, can be
found in particular Nepali TTF font e.g. Preeti font, can also be
included. This will not disappoint the old typists who are used to
with old typing keyboard.

Please, participate in this campaign and give your feedbacks to make
the new
modified keyboard as easy as possible. The positioning of key should
be the center of discussion.

The typing should easier and free from mental and physical stresses.

Lets keep on rolling to find a most stable key positions for 21st
century electronic media keyboard.

The Proposed Keyboard is dedicated to all those Nepalis who died in
the so-called People's War: Killed by Maoists, Killed by Government
Forces, Killed in Cross-Fire. The KeyBoard was made public on 2059B.S.
Falgun 01, to mark the 8th Year of so-called People's War to remember
those peoples who knowingly or unknowningly died or killed in this
war.

GyaNeX KeyBoard Layout Designer
GyaNeX Pokharel

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