Here's something that is probably going to be very useful to the Maldivian web developers working on Unicode-based Thaana web pages. It is a Javascript utility function that translates keystrokes into the appropriate Unicode Thaana characters. Hence, it makes it possible for HTML text input and textarea fields (and similar) to accept Thaana without having to require the user to switch the keyboard language on their computer. Such a feature contributes for a better user experience as the user can simply enter Dhivehi without the extra hassle. The code has been tested with no problems found on Firefox 1/2/3 and Internet Explorer 5/6/7.

If you would like a demo, I recommend you check out the text entry box at Radheef.com and see the HTML behind it. A few developers seem to have already adopted my code as at Radheef.com and utilized it in their work - haamadaily.com, sangudaily.com and jazeera.com.mv and haveeru.com.mv is using the code far as I know.

I originally wrote this around 2002 while experimenting with different methods of Thaana entry for the web. The version I'm releasing here, marked as version 2.0, is a modified version from 2006. It is being released under the MIT License.

- Download unicodehandler-2.0.js

Usage

1. Link the file in the HEAD section of the page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/unicodehandler.js"></script>

2. Attach the handler to any text INPUT, TEXTAREA or editable DIV tag:

<textarea rows="1" onkeypress="return juk_HandleKeyPress(event);"></textarea>

3. Set any Unicode-compatible Dhivehi font to be used for the field using CSS.

4. That's it!

Drop a line here if you use it and/or have problems. Enjoy.

Update (16-Aug-2008): This version is now superseded by the new and improved v3.0.

I am launching a new Maldivian Facebook application which I had planned out as part of a scheduled series of feature updates to Radheef.com. This new Facebook application displays a random word, and its associated meaning, from the Dhivehi Radheef on your Facebook profile. Words are automatically updated everyday so as to keep your profile fresh and, perhaps even, educational.

Give it a go if it catches your fancy.

- View the application's About page on Facebook

As much as I would like the Dhivehi language to die and rot away, it seems it won't happen, atleast for a while. The (relatively) newly minted freedom to publish newspapers and the growth of web-based news sites may have poised Dhivehi for a serious revival of the language. The revival probably isn't so much in terms of improvements in the vocabulary or other more linguistics related changes but rather a revival in terms of the amount of information now being pumped out in Dhivehi - and in my opinion, that's a great start.

A (if not THE) point worth noting here is that much of this new information is being produced - and published - by digital means. Most government authorities now have web portals and an increasing number of them maintain them diligently. Most, if not all, newspapers and magazines also seem to maintain web portals with their content being made available online on the web. This modern revival thus presents a very interesting and a very much modern set of problems (to geeks like me atleast ) :- accessing it. It is probably the first time in Maldivian history that a "dhivehi search engine" makes practical sense.

Now, I am aware that Google and other search engines can be used to search for Dhivehi and I'm also aware that there are a few local operations that purport/aspire to be Maldivian search engines but they all share important shortcomings. These shortcomings are mostly inherent to the various methods of writing Thaana as used on the World Wide Web.

Say you want to search for the word "rayyithunge". Typing that into a search engine would bring an entirely different set of results from typing in "rwacyituncge" or "ރައްޔިތުންގެ" - both of which are alternative forms of representing the same thing in Dhivehi. The different set of results arise because of the differences in the representation schemes used on the different sites. A search with the phrase "rayyithunge" would bring in results with pages that seem to mostly contain English and that's because "rayyithunge" is Dhivehi "Latin"ised into English so that we could use standard English characters to write Dhivehi words. People commonly use such Latinised Dhivehi when writing emails or chatting - say "haalu kihineththa" etc. Meanwhile, a search with the phrase "rwacyituncge" results in a listing of content from sites like Haveeru and Miadhu who use standard ASCII coupled with custom Dhivehi fonts with the characters mapped. If you try copy-pasting something written on the Haveeru page you'd see that it comes out as a seemingly meaningless jumble of letters. Lastly, a search with the phrase "ރައްޔިތުންގެ would bring in results from sites like Minivan Daily and Sangu Daily who use Unicode to display Dhivehi. Anyway, the technical explanations aside, the point is that Dhivehi search is (currently) a messy enterprise.

The solution to this problem can (seem to) be pretty simple. A custom search interface could be made to simply take the search query from a user and convert it into the three different representation schemes and then spawn search a search for each representation phrase on any of the existing search engines. This would work just fine... until you run into peculiar problems related to Latinised and ASCII Dhivehi schemes. Take for example the word "ފަލަ" Latinised into "fala" - a search on the word would result in almost entirely non-Dhivehi results totally unrelated to what we really want. Similarly, a search on the ASCII'ed phrase "Oled" (which is the word "ދެލޯ") would result in a large number of non-Dhivehi results with no bearing on what we wanted. These problems occur because Latinised and ASCII Dhivehi representations can result in text that have meaning in English as well - such as the case of "Oled" as above which happens to be a popular technical term in English.

A more sophisticated approach to the search problem probably could successfully iron out (most of) these quirks. An ideal solution would be to do away with the existing search engines such as Google, despite their awesomeness, and develop a custom search engine. A custom engine would allow for the recognition of the various representation schemes used and the subtle differences between them. A search phrase entered on such an engine would perhaps standardize the phrase and search through a standardized index to return results that are a better mirror of the Dhivehi content that is out there. Such a custom search engine could bundle in extra Dhivehi-related facilities such as conversions to allow for lack of (particular) fonts as used on sites and spelling correction among others.

So, perhaps the question now is, is there a real need for a Dhivehi search engine yet? When should a Maldivian "Google" be born?

I made a slight change to Akunbakun, the Facebook application, over the weekend that makes Akunbakun challenges expire one week after they have been set. A message about the expiry is published to the mini feed and news feed along with the names of all those who managed to win that particular challenge.

I plan to add features to make it easier to find which of your friends has an active Akunbakun challenge running as an easier alternative to having to run through profiles to see if they have one.

Meanwhile, the number of users of the application keeps on increasing!

Here is something that would probably be very handy to Maldivian web developers dabbling with Dhivehi sites. This PHP class addresses the need for converting text to and from Thaana in Ascii and Thaana in Unicode.

The class makes it easy to standardize text into one format irrespective of how it was/is written. This means that you can take text written in Accent, MS Word 97 (and prior) or written using Unicode as featured on recent MS Word editions and use the class to present output in the format of your choice without the need for imposing restrictions on the people who write the text. The class comes in even more handy when you have a form submission that takes input in Unicode but needs to be stored in the database or presented later as Ascii, or vice versa.

The class was something I originally wrote around 2001 and was used in the free Online Document Converter that featured on maldivianunderground.net. I rewrote it for PHP 5 recently for use in a project I am working on. The original class had support for Letin dhivehi -> Unicode/Ascii conversions as well which I haven't included in this release but will add it a future update.

Usage should be pretty straightforward but here is an example just to illustrate:

Example:

<?php
require 'thaana_conversions.obj.php';
$thaana = new Thaana_Conversions();

echo $thaana->convertUnicodeToAscii('&#1931;&#1960;&#1928;&#1964;&#1920;&#1960;');
echo $thaana->convertAsciiToUnicode('rWacje');
?>

Download:
- Thaana_Conversions.zip (v0.1, 2KB)

Enjoy

Update (7-May-2008): This version is now superseded by v0.2.

I'm releasing an update to the Hulhule FlightInfo PHP class I released late last year as a response to a feature request I received recently. The update adds support for flight information for all the days as available on the Flight Information Services site rather than the current-day-only mode that the original script supported. A small demo script is packaged in the download to highlight the usage details.

The Hulhule Flight Info class simplifies access to the flight information by doing the dirty work of grabbing the HTML page from the FIS site, parsing it, extracting the required information and making it accessible as a multidimensional array. It supports grabbing both the arrival and departure information and is easy to use. It has since been integrated into a few sites by different people.

- Download the flightinfo class v0.2

Enjoy

Akunbakun for Facebook, which I released last month, racked up it's 100th user today and so I'm celebrating the occasion by adding a new feature: Ranking.

Ranking is basically the success rate of the user on the Akunbakun challenges they take up. Numerically, it is simply a ratio between the number of wins and the number of tries taken. I added the feature to allow users to know how they are doing overall and to entice people to play more and get better scores.

Ranking, along with a few minor fixes and enhancements, has been rolled out a while ago and the Akunbakun box on the profile pages of all those who have added the application would now reflect the change.

Enjoy.