Bangla Website & Possible Bangla Section

[chinaman]

This is what all I see even after clearing cache:

ba„la Baxaet ŸlKa Kub kifn ikCuna| …† Pa †lFa bàNsPF idey ileKiC|

[Arnab]

Should work. I was just able to open it on my library's PC using IE.

That's two different machines than my home PC.

Try the new link:

link removed



[Edited on 30-12-2003 by Arnab]

[chinaman]

Worked.

[Arnab]

Awesome. Now let me write a full blown article and use some formatting. Will upload that shortly.

[Mahmood]

It doesnt work for me. I see weird characters.

[Arnab]

Yeah that webpage won't work anymore. I deleted the embedded font file for that one. I have made a webpage with more bangla this time:

http://banglacricket.com/Tours/bangladesha1.htm


What do you guys think?

[Edited on 30-12-2003 by Arnab]

[chinaman]

Great piece of work! Extra space between letters in a single word here and there proly reflects typos rather than gliches I think. Bangla fonts look better on print than on screen.

[Arnab]

Extra space between letters in a single word here and there proly reflects typos rather than gliches I think.

Program glitches, not typos.

Can be solved later.

[Nasif]

Its amazing that being a FULL COUNTRY we can't get true ISO Bangla UNICODE character set. The current UNICODE Bangla character set is done by kolkata public! Just shows the sad state of our government. They want to do all sorts of things for advancement of Bangla language, they made 21st February into International Mother Language. What did that achieve? Nothing but some propagada for the government.

The Arabic UNICODE set, even though it reads from right to left, is perfectly there. And my browser, both Mozilla and IE, shows Arabic perfectly. My Moziall and IE shows all chinese, just cosider that chinese language have move than 1000 characters in them!

We are worlds 7th most spoken most language! And yet we will be the last to completely implement into computer.

Take a look at Microsoft's offcial CRAPPY unicode Bangla keyboard layout http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/k...s/kbdinben.htm
Based on Indian INSCRIPT layout!

More on Unicode and Bangla:
http://www.banglakoi.tk
http://www.ekushey.org/unicode.html

On technical level Bangla is in Middle Ages!

Edit:
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0980.pdf
Did a little more digging. Here is the proposed crappy Unicode chart. Look at the chart of characters. WHO_THE_F uses "9kar" and double "9Kar" (also known as "lee-kar")? Its on position 0x09E1-0x09E3. The guy who proposed this $hit (pardon my language) was on phensidyl. There are 128 positions (0x0980-0x09FF) availalbe for Bangla. Where the hell is all the jukto font? People who designed this don't know bangla or they don't care. Looks to me like they took "Shonamoni-der Ao, Aa, Ka, Kha" book and copied the fonts mindlessly into unicode standard.

Bangla bhashar dharok ebong bahok holo Bangladesh. Taholey Kolkata, India thekey keno Bangla unicode jabey?

[Edited on 30-12-2003 by nasif]

[Arnab]

Yeah, when I started doing this, Unicode was my first instinct. I even downloaded a couple of Bangla Unicode word processors.

But, they lack the Juktakkhors. It's a huge drawback. Realistically, Bangla doesn't just have 50 letters. Counting the juktakkhors, it requires around 215 characters/glyphs for proper printing.

The current Bangla fonts that claim themselves to be Unicode compatible match the vowels and consonants in the actual unicode and then add the juktakkhors by replacing some other language's characters.

I actually made my own unicode Bangla font a year back using a font maker software. But, as long as there are no unicode standards including juktakkhors, I figured there's no use of that.

[Arnab]

Bangla bhashar dharok ebong bahok holo Bangladesh. Taholey Kolkata, India thekey keno Bangla unicode jabey?

That is just lame. Why do we need to bash them? West Bengal does have a sizable Bengali population, and clearly some people there have thought about this before us. For India, Bangla is just another Indic Script, no different from Hindi, Asamese and others and they all look quite the same.

Admit it, WE are backward gadhas to not have stood up for our own language.

Actually, hindi, the world's fifth largetst language is also in the same place as bangla. They can't use their unicode to print anything. They have to use transliteration software and use web embedded fonts just like us. The reason why Hindi didn't develop is the widespread use of English in India.

[Nasif]

Arnab man, I don't know if you read the post or not. In the whole post I was trying to say that it was our fault, mainly our government's fault. Being the fools that we are, we let our neighbors decide our language. Bangla doesn't deserve the same status as Karnatak, Asamese, Gujrati, Punjabi etc. Because it is a national language of a country, and we should have been the one who decided how it is in unicode. Unfortunately we are bunch of fools who like to sing "Ekushey" and do nothing. The last sentence was just saying that. I have nothing against the people of Kolkata, but the truth is Bangladesh is the home of Bangla not Kolkata. Sadly our leaders don't have that realization.

[Orpheus]

What are you guys whining about?

you make one! YOu are Bangladeshis right? Both of you are Computer Engineers.. you guys come up with something instead of gali-ing everyone.

[Arnab]

Orpheus, people have come up with what they can do. That's why you can read Prothom-alo in Bangla.

The thing is a proper Bangla Unicode is not in Nasif or my hands. It has to go through Bangladesh government.

And I don't care who does it first, the bangla speaking people in west bengal or us or even together, as long as it is properly done. So far, both sides have been incompetent.

[Edited on 30-12-2003 by Arnab]

[Orpheus]

f****** government

[Orpheus]

I feel like an idiot...

I didn't know they were offering free version (not trial one like before) of bornosoft at their website....

ha! not bad! and here I was talking about cracking...

[Edited on 31-12-2003 by Orpheus]

[Arnab]

The free version still has less features than the professional version. But the problems can be worked around.

What is bothering me is the unwanted spaces that show up in the html.

Bangsee doesn't have that problem, as apparent from the Prothom-alo website they use bangsee). But bangsee full version is not free.

And I don't know what software the Bhoere Kagoj guys use (definitely not bornosoft), but they also don't seem to have that problem.

[Orpheus]

if you copy that too ms word... the spacing might get solved... but I don't know if you will see it when you make it a webpage....

the pro doesn't have that problem and they also got a spell checker ...

[Edited on 2-1-2004 by Orpheus]

[chinaman]

Well, take a good look at their website. Not free from spaces. These are tell tell signs of the quality of their products. Just hope they fix it fast.

[alpona]

Hi Guys,

Most of the Bangla sites throughout the world developed using Alpona. The famous news paper sites like www.prothom-alo.com, www.bhorerkagoj.net etc. developed using Alpona. Even the Bangsee software you are talking using Alpona's font engine.

Alpona Standard edition is free for all; you can develope your site using this edition.

Information can be found at:

Web: http://www.akshor.com
Forum: http://forum.akshor.com

Thanx,

Alpona Support Team

[chinaman]

Dear alpona

Welcome to Banglacricket.

Yupe, Alpona is great. In my limited usage, I found it very useful. The only thing I didn't like is the extra spaces that appear from nowhere. I heard the professional edition doesn't have this problem. Would be great if that is the implemented in the standard edition too.

Anyway, great effort from the Alpona team. Hat's off to you guys.

[Arnab]

Alpona guy,

Do you have any plans of developing a phonetic transliteration software like Bangsee?

I don't have the energy to learn a new bangla keyboard layout like bijoy, etc.

I want to type things in English and see it in Bangla. Like in Bornosoft or Bangsee.

[alpona]

so brother, why don't you use Bangsee ...

[chinaman]

Dear alpona

Of course he or anyone for that matter can use any program they are comfortable with. He asked a very simple question since you were publicising your program. You can even answer with a small yes or no. But your answer doesn't seem to be a bright one at all. Well, our expectations are always high from creative guys like yourself. Thanks anyway.

[alpona]

Sorry for misunderstanding.

Bangsee using Alpona's font engine that I told you already. So, using Alpona or Bangsee doesn't make any difference in such case...am I right?