Here's a quick tip for anyone stumped by the issue.

I have not dealt with the web hosting services from Dhiraagu for a long time but had a brief encounter earlier this week when I was attempting to setup the custom CMS we use at Semicolon for a client project. It turns out Dhiraagu has error reporting disabled for their PHP setup as well as disabled the phpinfo() function, which by themselves really are decent security measures. But as a developer, error reporting is essential when setting up a new application or testing out code and debugging.

You can get back error reporting on Dhiraagu hosting services by overriding their error reporting setting through a .htaccess or by adding a PHP statement at the start of the PHP files.

.htaccess:
php_value display_errors on
php_value display_startup_errors on

PHP:
ini_set('display_errors',1);
error_reporting(E_ALL); // Or whatever level of error reporting you would like

Unfortunately, short of asking Dhiraagu, there is no way (atleast, that I am aware of) to activate the phpinfo function if it has been disabled by adding it to the "disable_functions" list in php.ini. However, it is possible to cull all (if not most) the data available via the phpinfo() function using other functions available within PHP.

Here's an update to my Javascript Thaana Keyboard library which provides easy entry of Thaana on web pages without the involvement of OS-based keyboard switching. Hit the demo page to see it in action.

This release is solely a bugfix release addressing an issue with the display of newly entered text in multiline fields where text exceeds the size of the visible area. I originally cut this release in February but decided to hold back on a public release till I had further issues to fix or had new features added, neither of which has come since...

Thanks goes to Ahmed Ali for bringing the bug to my attention.

Changelog

+ Fixed issue with the display of newly entered text in multiline fields where text exceeds the size of the visible area.

Usage

Usage remains same as before. Please refer to my detailed post on the 4.0 release.

Demo

As usual, a demonstration and testing page is available.

Download

- full source version (5.66 KB)
- packed version (2.47 KB) [recommended]

Here's a minor update to my Javascript Thaana Keyboard library. This release, version 4.2, amounts to a single bugfix addressing an error in key translation for some keys when operating under the "Phonetic-HH" keyboard mode. Everything else remains as per the earlier v4 series releases.

Thanks goes to Nattu for bringing the bug to my attention.

Changelog:

+ Fixed handling of keys when in Phonetic-HH keyboard mode

Usage:

Usage remains same as before. Please refer to my detailed post on the 4.0 release.

Demo:

Check out the demonstration and testing page here.

Download:

- full source version (5.51 KB)
- packed version (2.46 KB) [recommended]

Update (13-Apr-2009): This version is now superseded by release v4.2.1.

I published an article last year, titled "Guide to using Thaana on the WWW", with the aim of presenting a quick overview of the various approaches/methods for developing Thaana-based websites. It introduced 6 different methods and included enough implementation details to help a beginner get started. I've now rewritten bits of the article for increased clarity and also added some examples to help fortify the usage instructions.

Click here to read the updated article.

I released Javascript Thaana Keyboard v4.0 only 10 days ago but I've since been made aware of a few bugs in the script that had gone unnoticed during testing back then. I decided to cut another release to fix those bugs which, although minor, could potentially be annoying to end-users. This new release also crams in a few tweaks to improve performance.

Changelog:

+ Fixed handling of Delete key and other special keys
+ Added correct handling for Thaana brackets "()"
+ Improved performance

Usage:

Usage remains same as before, so please refer to my post on the 4.0 release.

Demo:

Check out the demonstration and testing page here.

Download:

- full source version (10.6 KB)
- packed version (2.46 KB) [recommended]

Update (19-Dec-2008): This version is now superseded by release v4.2.

Here is an update to my Javascript Thaana Keyboard (JTK). This 4.0 release packs in a bunch of new features, making JTK much more powerful and more flexible than any of the earlier releases.

Keyboard support:

Most notable on this new release is the introduction of support for the various different types of Thaana keyboard in use. JTK now supports the following keyboard layouts:

Phonetic (Segha version): This keyboard is perhaps the most popular Thaana keyboard layout. JTK identifies this keyboard as "phonetic".

Phonetic (Hassan Hameed version): This keyboard is similar to above but notably differs in its mapping of alifu, abafili, aabaafili, gaafu and the sukun. JTK identifies this keyboard as 'phonetic-hh'.

Typewriter: This is the standardized Thaana layout used on typewriters. JTK identifies this keyboard as 'typewriter'.

Browser support:

JTK 4.0 adds support for IE5.5, which has a very significant market share still. Hence JTK should now work perfectly well on Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5+, Mozilla Firefox 1+, Opera 9+, Apple Safari 2+ and Google Chrome 0.1+.

Basic usage:

The basic usage allows for fast and easy integration of JTK on your Thaana web pages.

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

2. For any element accepting input (i.e. INPUTs, TEXTAREAs, content-editable DIVs), assign them the special class name "thaanaKeyboardInput". JTK will automatically handle text entry to any element with that class name. You can assign further classes to the elements without ill-effect, if needed.

3. There are two ways to set the keyboard used for an element.
defaultKeyboard method: This method allows setting a default keyboard to be used on all elements handled by JTK. To do this, add the following to the HEAD section of your web page but make sure it is added after the code inserted from step 1 above.

thaanaKeyboardState method: This method allows per element control on the type of keyboard used by an element handled by JTK. To do this, add a form element (can be a radio, checkbox, select, hidden or text field) with its name set to the text entry element id suffixed with the string "_thaanaKeyboardState". The value of these fields should specify either 'off', 'phonetic', 'phonetic-hh' or 'typewriter', indicating the status and the keyboard in use.

So, if you had a text entry field with the id "fullname" then the keyboard could be specified using a hidden field as follows:

4. Make sure that the text direction for the Thaana fields is set to "rtl". This can be easily achieved using CSS, by adding a class definition for the "thaanaKeyboardInput" class or by any other method of your choice. Adding the following to your CSS definition should suffice for most uses:

.thaanaKeyboardInput {
    font-family: faruma, 'mv iyyu nala', 'mv elaaf normal';
    direction: rtl;
}

If the above instructions are followed correctly, the JTK Thaana functionality would be in effect soon as the page has loaded!

Advanced Usage: The JTK object, methods and properties

To facilitate advanced integration functionality for developers looking to have (finer) control over its behavior, JTK now makes itself available as a public object named "thaanaKeyboard".

The following properties and methods exposed by the "thaanaKeyboard" object:

defaultKeyboard: [property] The Thaana keyboard layout type to default to when JTK enabled elements do not have a keyboard specified.
Valid values are: 'off' to keep Thaana disabled, 'phonetic' to use the standard phonetic layout, 'phonetic-hh' to use the phonetic layout by Dr. Hassan Hameed and 'typewriter' to use the typewriter layout.

setHandlerById ( id, action ): [method] Sets the state of the JTK handler for a page element.
The id argument should be a string containing the id of any content-editable element. The action argument should specify either "enable" or "disable" depending on whether input handling for Thaana should be enabled or disabled, respectively.

setHandlerByClass ( class, action ): [method] Sets the state of the JTK handler for a set of page elements.
The class argument should be a string containing the class name of any content-editable element (i.e input, textarea etc). The action argument should specify either "enable" or "disable" depending on whether input handling for Thaana should be enabled or disabled, respectively.

License:

JTK 4.0 is released under the MIT License, allowing its use in both personal and commercial applications as long as the copyright and license permission notice remains intact.

Demo:

Check out the demonstration and testing page here.

Download:

- original full source version (10.0 KB)
- packed version (2.33 KB) [recommended]

As always, drop a line here if you use it and/or have problems or suggestions. Enjoy.

Update (31-Oct-2008): This version is now superseded by release v4.1.

Anyone developing custom code for a Thaana application or website will undoubtedly run into many interesting challenges and issues. Judging by how often I get emails asking for help with getting MySQL to play nice when using Unicode Thaana, I'd say it's one of the very first issues many (newbie?) web developers face.

Here are some of the basics that one should keep in mind when attempting to use Unicode Thaana and MySQL.

Charset
It is very important that the correct character set be used when using Unicode Thaana for MySQL to correctly recognize the text. If you are going nuts over your code returning "???" or junk characters after trying to store Thaana text into a MySQL database, then it most certainly is because of an incorrect charset being used.

I recommend issuing the following SQL commands upon successfully establishing a connection with the MySQL server.

SET NAMES utf8;
SET CHARACTER SET utf8;

Read up the MySQL reference page on connection charsets and collations for more details.

Collation
MySQL does not have special language specific collation rules for Thaana - and there is no need for such far as I am aware. I recommend using the "utf8_unicode_ci" collation when creating tables and fields in MySQL.

Refer to the MySQL reference page Unicode character sets for more details.

Happy databasing