Behold the Table Driven Text Service, Part 12 (The knights who say நீ, redux, #2)

by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2008/06/30 10:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2008/06/30/8669123.aspx

Prior posts in the series:

• 0 (You have to start somewhere)
• 1 (Starting with a dictionary simple in every way)
• 2 (Three ways to convert!)
• 3 (Where do keystrokes come in?)
• 4 (Specifying when to modify, if not how)
• 5 (All about the language, baby!)
• 6 (it is sufficient to be iconic, aka DaYi, DaYi Aynu!)
• 7 (Configuration 'junk in the trunk', part 1)
• 8 (Configuration 'junk in the trunk', part 2)
• 9 (Will you be content if I tell you how some content can be defined?)
• 10 ("Even Jove nods," Atlas shrugged, "so we'll convert their old files, now.")
• 11 (The knights who say நீ, redux, #1)

Okay, I have left people handing long enough.

Now, in the grand tradition of all of the above blogs, plus these other relevant blogs:

• And we are the knights who say நீ (NII)
• Learn Tamil in 30 Days (or something like that)
• Back to Sri Lanka (conceptually)

The first public build of this file defining my try at a Tamil source file for the Table Driven Text Service is now available!

The steps to install it:

0) You must be running Vista or Server 2008. It would be wonderful if this worked downlevel, but nobody has agreed to test that and so it will not currently work. And no, trying to make it work on your own is not just copying a few files and adding a few registry keys. Sorry!

1) Grab the source file by right clicking on one of the following links here and saving them to your locale machine -- either in text form from here, or as a zip file here. If you get the zipped file then of course unzip it. You will need the text file for future steps.

2) Copy the text file to \Program Files\Windows NT\TableTextService on your machine (if the "Program Files" on your machine is another language, use that directory, do not create a new one!). If you drg it in you will be prompted to elevate:

so accept that and copy the file. When you are done it will look something like the following:

Though if you do not have MUI language packs installed those language directories will be missing and you might have some localized path chunks up in the breadcrumb bar.

2a) If you running on a 64-bit machine then you must also put a copy of this file in \Program Files (x86)\Windows NT\TableTextService on your machine (if the "Program Files (x86)" on your machine is another language, use that directory, do not create a new one!). If you skip this step on a 64-bit machine then you will not be able to use the input method in 32-bit processes.

You will get that same elevation prompt as the other directory if you drag the file in

and when you are done it will look something like this:

Though if you do not have MUI language packs installed those language directories will be missing and you might have some localized path chunks up in the breadcrumb bar.

3) Open up an elevated command prompt. All you have to do is right click on the icon in the Start Menu or whereever to get this menu:

and select the Run as administrator option.

4) You will be put in the system32 directory. You need to navigate to the place you put the file in step 2, ande then run the command to register the input method:

The command to run is

rundll32 TableTextService.dll RegisterProfile TableTextServiceTamil.txt

and it is somewhat case sensitive so do not experiment with the case unless you are being paid by me to test this (since I am paying no one this rules you all out).

You will then be prompted to OKAY this registration you just requested:

Say OK to this.

4a) If you are running on a 64-bit machine, you must also navigate to the place you put the other file in that elevated command prompt:

Run the same command again:

rundll32 TableTextService.dll RegisterProfile TableTextServiceTamil.txt

and then you'll get that dialog again:

Just OK it again.

5) Go to the Control Panel:

6) Launch Regional and Language Options:

7) Choose the Keyboards and Languages tab:

8) Click on the Change keyboards... button to launch the Text Services Framework's Text Services and Input Languages dialog:

9) Click the Add... button to open the Add Input Language dialog and select the exciting new Tamil input method:

10) After you click OK to that, you will be back at the Text Services and Input Languages dialog. Click OK and you are done.

And now you have this Tamil Input Method 0.5 to play with!

More for Sri Lanka coming in future blog(s)....

This blog brought to you by கு (U+0b95 U+0bc1, aka TAMIL LETTER KA + TAMIL VOWEL SIGN U, aka TAMIL LETTER KU)

alee67 on 17 Dec 2012 9:11 AM:

alee67 on 18 Dec 2012 12:12 PM:

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