লেখ (Lekho) @
Lekho used to be
a crude editor written in C++ using the QT toolkit. It was written in
an era (circa 2003) when unicode support for Bangla was basically
non-existent. Current (circa 2011) operating systems like Vista, Win7
and Mac OS X (10.5.8 upwards) and probably Linux support bangla unicode
to the fullest making Lekho obsolete. This used to be the old page for Lekho.
Lekho is now
a small collection of tools and resources to using
bangla on computers.
Bangla on computers
It is still likely (2011) that your computer does not support Bangla
"out of the box". In order to read and write Bangla on your computer
you will need apropriate fonts and standards aware software.
To get started, you will need bangla fonts. There are several
free ones available at the free bangla fonts project.
To install one or more of these fonts reference this page on the
microsoft windows help website. To install one or more of these fonts
on a Mac, copy the .ttf file into you ~/Library/Fonts/ folder.
To setup your system to input bangla text refer to this
excellent wikipedia page and go to the section on the operating system
you have.
Mac OS X Bangla Input Method
Mac OS X still doesn't come with
a prepackaged input method for Bangla. I've generated a quick and dirty
one.
- Download the file bangla.inputplugin
[sf.net]
- Copy this file to your ~/Library/Input Methods/ folder.
- Goto System Preferences->International
- Under "Input menu" tick "Show input menu in menu bar" and
tick "BanglaIM"
- Reference the help file for how to
type specific characters
- If you know python, you can modifiy generator.py
to
regenerate the input method file to your convenience
- You can also use any unicode aware editor to change
bangla.inputplugin to suit your typing preferences.
Software compatibility
Not all software supports Bangla unicode. Firefox on windows and Mac
does a great job of rendering conjuncts etc. Word for mac does not.
I used seamonkey to create this page, and it handled বাংলা just fine,
including যুক্তাক্ষর.