[Advaita-l] Request - Sanskrit Editor

[Siva Senani Nori]

There is no need for another editor if you know how to use Inscript keyboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InScript_keyboard) - even if you do not know, it would be worth the trouble to learn that because Inscript is a common keyboard for all Indian languages. So one could type in both Devangari and one's own mother tongue (for those who have a mother tongue other than Hindi and Marathi) by learning to type once. Even for Hindi and Marathi speakers, learning the Inscript way of typing is more efficient. Here is why:

What are the most frequent letters in the English language? Say, 'e', and then 'a' amongst vowels; and then maybe 's', 'r' and 't' in consonants. Look at where these are positioned in the 'qwerty' keyboard - in the most incovenient positions. This has been done purposefully to slow down typing, when the early models were getting jammed as those slow mechanical machines could not keep pace with the speed of human fingers. Due to what economists call the network effect, this inefficient design stuck - even though we moved from manual typewriters to electronic typewriters and then computers and now, iPads. It is for a similar reason that we use four limbs to drive a car, but two fingers suffice to fly an airplane, or control a locomotive engine. It is not as if people did not try - there is what is known as a Dvorak keyboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard) and a phone with a straight ABC layout from Karbon or some such brand
 in India, but the majority does not change - due to inertia. Inscript, being designed scientifically, unlike the old Remington one, is a good chance to start with an efficient keyboard, or to shift to one. All consonants are to the right; and vowels to the left. The most common ones are in the easiest positions - say 'ra' or repha at the home or neutral position of the right hand index finger (around 90% of people are right-handers), the vowel 'a' is supplied by default, and the next most common vowel 'i' is at the home or neutral position of the left hand index finger. Similarly the position of consonants is such that similar consonants are groupe together; thus right hand middle finger is 'ka', same key with shift is 'kha', then the top row for right hand middle finger is 'ga', the same key with shift is 'gha' and so on for ta-varga, ca-varga, Ta-varga (all to right of ka-varga) and pa-varga (left of repha).

Now, the best part is that support for Inscript is in-built in Windows 7. Just go to Control Panel/Regional Settings/Language and add the languages you want. Once your language settings are changed, you get a small icon beside your tray (normally to the botton on right-hand side). Open any program like Word or Excle, choose the language you want from the language icon next to your tray, and you can start typing in the chosen script. You can also toggle between languages and keyboards on the fly. Then, an utility like IME Bhasha (https://sites.google.com/site/bhashaime/) helps in changing text in one script to text in another script. I tested this and it works pretty fine with Telugu and Devanagari.

Hope this helps.

Regards
N. Siva Senani



----- Original Message -----
> From: Gopi Sankaran <gkoct68 at gmail.com>
> To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Cc: 
> Sent: Friday, 31 August 2012 4:38 PM
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Request - Sanskrit Editor
> 
> Respected Members,
> 
> Namasthe.
> 
> I am having Windows 7 as OS.Could you please suggest me Sanskrit editors
> (free down load version) by giving the links.
> 
> I have seen some members replying in Sanskrit when referring the base text
> instead of typing in English
> 
> Pl do the needful, if possibe
> 
> Regards
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