Next FOSS Ka KURA (FKK) on January 9, 2009

[Bal Krishna Bal]

Dear All,
This is an invitation to you all to the upcoming FOSS Ka Kura (FKK) which is being organized by Madan Puraskar Pustakalya (MPP). Please find the details of the programme below:


Topic: "Formatted Nepali Text Conversion"

Venue: Yala Maya Kendra, Lalitpur, PatanDhoka
Date: Friday January 9, 2009
Time: 4 P.M - 5 P.M

Presentation of a new Open Source tool for i.a. converting mixed Nepali documents using Nepali fonts/from to Unicode.

The converter is in several ways revolutionary in comparision to what exists right now:

VERSATILE:
- Supports formatted (OpenOffice) documents natively, and HTML, RTF through plugins.
- All formatting (font size, underline, italic,...) is kept intact.
- Not limited to text, but also spreadsheets, presentations etc can be converted.
- Mixed text with Nepali and non-devanagari (English) text can be converted (i.e. documents using mixed fonts Preeti, Arial, Kantipur, Courier, etc are converted correctly, with all formatting intact)

USER FRIENDLY AND EASY:

- much more user friendly than existsing tools. F.eks. user does not need to know about or specify text encodings

- clipboard conversion
- conversion tables are kept in user friendly spreadsheets (one for each font), which an (educated) user can maintain even with no programming skills.


Jacob Nordfalk is a Danish programmer and assistant professor in CS, is living in Nepal, Kathmandu and have i.a. written 3 books about Java programming (http://javabog.dk).

The project is 80% complete and available from http://code.google.com/p/nepaliconverter/ . It will be a big step forward for Digital Nepal... if volunteers are found to take over and finish the project before until April 2009, when Jacob moves permanently to live in Denmark.

The talk will present how the (Java) converter is working. Knowing some Java is fine, but there are other activities (transliteration schemes and font conversion tables and quality assurance/testing, use case analysis etc) where just general computer knowledge is required to contribute to the project.

Regards,
Bal Krishna Bal
Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya
Lalitpur, PatanDhoka
Nepal

[Jitendra kumar]

Hello All,
    This is a reminder to everyone about the upcoming FOSS ka Kura to be held on Friday Jan 9. The topic of the presentation is "Formatted Nepali Text Conversion" and will be presented by Mr. Jacob Nordfalk.

This is also the remind that the SFD volunteers will be awarded certificate on the same day. So, be there to collect your certificate.

Venue: Yala Maya Kendra, Lalitpur, PatanDhoka
Date: Friday January 9, 2009
Time: 4 P.M - 5 P.M

Regards,
Jitendra Harlalka.

[Jitendra kumar]

Hi All,

Yesterday, a few of us were present during the FOSS Ka Kura session by Mr. Jacob Nordfalk.

His Java program for conversion of Formatted Non-unicode text to Unicode text in an Openoffice document was really great and too useful.

Now, Mr. Nordfalk wants to extend the program and make it capable of  conversion from 'Unicode to Non-unicode text' and transliteration of the Nepali text itself. And, if someone is interested, this program has scope beyond Openoffice document itself like HTML documents, clipboard content, etc.
     
I think this can really be a good academic project and also is good if someone wants to complete it apart from academics. I, myself, would have loved to do this but since this is my final semester, I won't be able to commit enough time for this project.

I request someone to come forward and take up the responsibility since this project is really helpful for Nepali language itself.

And if no one comes forward, I propose a 2 hour HACKATHON during FOSS Info Mela on this project.

Please, drop in your views.

Regards,
Jitendra.

[Bal Krishna Bal]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 7:02 AM, Jitendra kumar <jitendra...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

Yesterday, a few of us were present during the FOSS Ka Kura session by Mr. Jacob Nordfalk.

His Java program for conversion of Formatted Non-unicode text to Unicode text in an Openoffice document was really great and too useful.

Now, Mr. Nordfalk wants to extend the program and make it capable of  conversion from 'Unicode to Non-unicode text' and transliteration of the Nepali text itself. And, if someone is interested, this program has scope beyond Openoffice document itself like HTML documents, clipboard content, etc.
     
I think this can really be a good academic project and also is good if someone wants to complete it apart from academics. I, myself, would have loved to do this but since this is my final semester, I won't be able to commit enough time for this project.

I request someone to come forward and take up the responsibility since this project is really helpful for Nepali language itself.

After the talk, the Computer Science and Engineering Department from the Kathmandu University have shown some interest in some of the parts of the project like the transliteration part. Hopefully, more interested people would turn up in the days to come.
 
Let us all work together so that Jacob's efforts in his own words "gets handed over to and taken over by Nepalis themselves"!!
Regards,
Bal Krishna

[Hempal Shrestha]

Dear FOSSians,

This is an important and necessary project for enabling computing in Nepali. And as Jitendra said, we need a group of hackers (even aspiring hackers) to take this one before Jacob leaves Nepal. I would further, recommend, to make this necessity loud an clear to NLIT team.

So, Why don't we start working, is there anyone who can take this as their project and start working on it. They need to meet Jacob in person ASAP and take on the further responsibility. From the discussions, the project might need following kinds of contribution I would request Jacob to update the list about what could be the tentative roles, their requirements and  numbers.

1. Project Manager (Maintainer)
2. Programmers
3. Translators (Language /font support work)
4. Testers / Evaluators


I look forward for serious commitment from FOSSians

Best Regards,

Hempal Shrestha

[Jacob Nordfalk]

Dear Hempal, and all others who have reacted. I value your engagement very much!

As I stated in the talk I hope I can let others do management tasks etc.

So, if anyone would please arrange a meeting, monday to friday, between 9 and 15 oclock, I'll surely come.

But I've reserved saturday the 31th of january, as I got the impression that there would/could be a working-like-meeting at that time ?

 

From the discussions, the project might need following kinds of contribution I would request Jacob to update the list about what could be the tentative roles, their requirements and  numbers.

1. Project Manager (Maintainer)

Yes, who would like to manage and update the home page http://code.google.com/p/nepaliconverter/ (text and add project members) and/or call for meetings?
Please provide your Google accounts and I'll let you manage the home page.

Ive already added eterna...@gmail.com and nirajs...@gmail.com, as its my implression that they will contribute, hopefully.

Anyone else who would like to contribute, please provide your Google accounts to eterna...@gmail.com and nirajs...@gmail.com so that they can add you.

Jacob

 

--
Jacob Nordfalk
Venu al la plej granda kultura evento en esperantujo: Kultura Esperanto-Festivalo - la 7a ĝis la 12a de julio 2009 - http://kef.saluton.dk

[Hempal Shrestha]

Hi All,

This is a gentle reminder to all, who could be part of this important work that needs to be taken forward. If there is anyone interested, Please do share with Jacob and team (as mentioned in the email). It would be great to have more people working on such real need based work. We need to move as fast as possible in this regard, hence please do jump in.

Best Regards,

Hempal Shrestha

[Bal Krishna Bal]

Dear All,
So far very nominal interests have shown up regarding the works that Jacob wants somebody of us to take over. We are meeting once again this coming Sunday(Jan 25) at 3 P.M at MPP. Anybody really interested and with commitments to take up the work are welcome to attend the meeting.
Regards,
Bal Krishna