വിക്കിപീഡിയ:സ്വാഗതം(Welcome)
വിക്കിപീഡിയ, ഒരു സ്വതന്ത്ര വിജ്ഞാനകോശം.
To learn more about the Wikipedia concept, see the welcome page and Help page from English Wikipedia. Please read these before you contribute.
On this page we will try to explain how to resolve problems when viewing the Malayalam pages and how to contribute to Malayalam Wikipedia.
Malayalam Wikipedia uses Unicode to encode its pages.
If you do not see Malayalam letters at all you may need a Malayalam Unicode Font, sections below explain the best options for various platforms.
If you see Malayalam letters but there are too many spelling mistakes your browser is probably not set up for Indic scripts. Please see "Setting up your browser for Indic scripts".
ഉള്ളടക്കം |
[തിരുത്തുക] For Microsoft Windows users:
If you have Windows XP with the SP2 update, you already have a working system. The Kartika font which comes with the SP2 update is a decent font. Please do not install the Thoolika font mentioned below.
The most likely reason why you cannot see anything on the Malayalam Wikipedia is that you do not have a font that supports the Malayalam Unicode range. If you can see some letters, but there are too many errors, you probably have a font with poor support for Malayalam Unicode. Perhaps the best fonts available are Anjali Oldlipi by Kevin and Thoolika Unicode fonts produced by Supersoft in Thiruvananthapuram. They work almost perfectly in Windows 95/98, ME, 2000, and XP (especially with Internet Explorer 5 or over). Please download the fonts by following the links above and install them. To install, open "Fonts" from Control Panel. If you are planning to use the Thoolika font, please read the "Important note to users of Thoolika font" below before you change anything.
[തിരുത്തുക] Internet Explorer users:
If you were able to see some letters, you will need to change the font Internet Explorer uses for showing Malayalam Unicode. To do this pull down Tools from the menubar in Internet Explorer and follow Internet Options..., click on Fonts (button). Choose Malayalam in Language script first, and choose a Unicode font (AnjaliOlpLipi, Thoolika, Rachana, Karthika etc) in the Web page font box. Restart Internet Explorer if it doesn't work the first time around.
[തിരുത്തുക] Mozilla users:
It seems you need to turn on "Indic" support in Windows 2000. To do this, go to Control Panel in your computer, double click on Regional Options. In General Tab, language settings for the system, check the Indic box and click OK. You may need to restart the machine after doing this. In Windows XP, go to Control Panel in your computer, double click Regional and Language Options, select Languages Tab, under supplemental language support, check the box to install files for complex script and click OK. (Can somebody please confirm this?). In case you are still not able to see Malayalam letters properly in Mozilla, you should select the font Mozilla uses for Unicode by opening from Mozilla's menu bar Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts. Choose "Fonts for:" as Unicode and all typefaces as ThoolikaTraditionalUnicode or ThoolikaUnicode.
[തിരുത്തുക] Firefox Users
AnjaliOldlipi works excellent on Firefox. To use it as default font to display Malayalam and Other Languages [from Tools menu > Options item > Content tab > Fonts & Colors section > Advanced button > Select "Malayalam" and set Anjali as font for serif/san-serif/monospace, do the same for Other Languages also.
[തിരുത്തുക] Important note to users of Thoolika font
Be warned that even with this setup you will notice some "errors". These are mostly because of problems with the way Windows and Thoolika font handles Malayalam Unicode. The most jarring error is with chillaksharams which get rendered as base letter and chandrakkala. Please DO NOT attempt to "correct" this. You will be introducing errors by doing so. Note that Windows XP users with SP2 update will not have this problem if they use Kartika font.
[തിരുത്തുക] Issue of Kerala Kaumudi Thoolika.ttf
If you have also installed Thoolika.ttf from http://www.keralakaumudi.com/ you may still face problems. Try changing the font setting of your browser. If that does not fix it the problem can be corrected by uninstalling Kerala Kaumudi Thoolika font.
[തിരുത്തുക] For users of GNU/Linux:
Under Debian GNU/Linux, installing the package "ttf-malayalam-fonts" will allow the pages to be displayed correctly in mozilla, and presumably other browsers.
For other distributions, if you use FreeType, you can download the Thoolika Unicode fonts and put them in a directory that holds your TTF fonts. Now restart Mozilla and text should work.
There is an XFree86 keyboard, named ml, that you can load (XF 4.3.* and up) with: setxkbmap 'us,ml' -option 'grp:shift_toggle'
You can use another latin layout than 'us' if you want, but you must define one, or you will be in trouble if you can't type any ascii :) the 'shift_toggle' part defines that both shift keys pressed simultaneously toggle between latin and malayalam, there are other choices possible, look at /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/group for a full list.
Once you are satisfied, you can make the choice permanent, put "us,ml" as value for XkbLayout and "grp:shift_toggle" (or wathever your grp:xxx choice is) as valuefor XkbOptions in /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file (if you use Mandrake GNU/Linux you can simply choose "malayalam keyboard" on the graphical keyboard configuration tool).
So you can type directly in malayalam and in UTF-8 from GNU/Linux. The rendering depends on the programs; Gtk2 and Qt 3.2 render correctly; others (among them, mozilla) render incorrectly, but are still readable (letters are not properly shaped, but each separate letter is displayed, so typing and editing directly in mozilla is possible, and maybe easier than doing cut and paste)
Konqueror from KDE 3.2 may have proper rendering, allowing you to type and have proper rendering at the same time, but not it has not been tested.
Another easier option is to install yudit[1].yudit supports most indic languages.for a brief howto refer: http://pjklinux.blogspot.com/2006/08/using-yudit-for-writing-malayalam.html
[തിരുത്തുക] Editing Pages
If the pages render properly and you are interested in contributing to this project, read the following:
Please take a look at how to edit a page and the Welcome page from English Wikipedia for guidelines. In order to contribute to Malayalam Wikipedia, you'll need to use either
(i) Transliteration software like Varamozhi that uses an intuitive scheme to produce Malayalam letters from Malayalam-typed-in-English text, or
(ii) Software that supports Malayalam keyboards (the usual keyboard in which the keys are interpreted differently).
All contributors to Malayalam Wikipedia use Varamozhi at the time of writing this (May, 2003). Varamozhi doesn't have direct support for Unicode. You need to choose some non-Unicode font which Varamozhi supports for displaying the Malayalam letters in Varamozhi. Malayalam text from Varamozhi's window must not be cut and paste into Wikipedia's edit window since this is not in Unicode. Note that the Thoolika font option in Varamozhi refers to a non-Unicode font of the same name. You have to use the "export to UTF8" feature in Varamozhi which will open up a browser showing the material encoded in Unicode. This should be cut-and-paste into Wikipedia's edit box and appropriate edits done. You are strongly recommended to use the Sandbox page to get some practice in adding and manipulating material before editing real articles.
Note that "export to UTF8" crashes in Win95/98 with older versions of Varamozhi. This bug has now been fixed. Some other bugs which produced incorrect Unicode have also been fixed very recently. So it is highly recommended that you grab the latest version of Varamozhi from http://varamozhi.sourceforge.net before you start using it for contributing to Wikipedia.
Aksharamala and C-dit's Nila are also helps to write in translitation Malayalam.
[തിരുത്തുക] Additional Points
A few points to remember when adding material:
- Do register and always remember to login before adding material.
- Please try to add the Unicode encoded text produced by Varamozhi without trying to correct the apparent "spelling mistakes". Most of these "mistakes" are due to problems with the font and script processor which we hope will be fixed in the near future.
- If you use Varamozhi, try to post the English text you used to produce the Malayalam text in the "Discuss this page" page for the corresponding article. See for eg., this discussion page for the articleമഹാത്മാഗാന്ധി. This is a temporary measure for easily correcting some potential mistakes in Unicode encoding produced by Varamozhi till Varamozhi and Unicode support become bug free.
[തിരുത്തുക] More Info
Setting up your browser for Indic scripts
To get more information on how to install fonts, go to this page on the Unicode organization's website. http://www.unicode.org/help/display_problems.html
For a bit more information, see the following Talk pages and leave a message for more help:
- User:Manjithkaini's Talk Page in English Wikipedia
- Manjithkaini's Talk Page
- Peringz' Talk Page
