Hay guys after very long time im about to teach you how to
read Sinhala (Unicode) web pages on the internet, what is the Unicode let’s have a
look at that first, font means the graphical representation of the computer
signals that equals to human character (read http://a-zpoint.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-install-fonts-in-your-computer.html)
so if you used the computer to show the character then you need a table that
matches the pattern and the human known symbol that table calls the ASCII table
it used 8bits to represent a one single character so as u know 8bits or 8 position
in the binary values can only contained 256 different patterns (2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2
= 256) that’s mean 8bit ASCII can only represent 256 human recognizable
characters only.
Imagine you need to type a letter in Sinhala or Tamil or using
another local language except English, When you’re using a personal pc then it
doesn’t matter u can represent the English character set using Sinhala
character set by using font files I think that is familiar to you. If you miss
the font you will get freak symbols on your document.
The problem is when you work with the global environment
like the internet you can’t remove the ASCII set from your web host, so if you
used the local character then you have to give the download link to fonts that
u used in ur web page that’s a little complex thing and it’s not standard way
to deal with the language, the Unicode is standardized to solve that problem
it’s a 16 bit character set that can hold 65536 symbols (in utf8 Unicode
system)
Explanation about Unicode in http://www.unicode.org/
“The Unicode Standard is a character coding system designed
to support the worldwide interchange, processing, and display of the written
texts of the diverse languages and technical disciplines of the modern world.
In addition, it supports classical and historical texts of many written
languages.”
When you using Sinhala on the internet you have to download
the Unicode layout for ur computer because the windows or Mac operating systems
are designed to work with the ASCII character layout therefore you have to
install the additional support to the computer to recognized the local keyboard
layout otherwise it can’t show you the font and you will see box with hex codes
inside of it.
If you can see the my name in this double quotas you have
the Sinhala Unicode set if cant see than download it following rest of the
details in hear
“කසුන් චාමර ද
අල්විස්”
How to search for the Unicode appropriate for ur system
Go to the browser
and go to search section or go to the search engine and type “Sinhala Unicode
download for xp sp2” if you need Tamil Unicode for the windows 7 then “Tamil
Unicode download for windows 7” or any other O/S or any Unicode system I think
u get the idea hear, ok search for win
xp sp2 Unicode system
Or download it from this links
Click on this link above and go to the page then select the ur computer
operating system it will download automatically
select your operating system
select your service pack (eg. Windows XP Service Pack 2)
select save file
it will download to your desktop you can fined the location by right clicking on it and select "Open containing folder"
After download double click on the downloaded exe file in download
folder or Firefox download window and double click on the exe file that you
downloaded and follow the steps below
Double click on the downloaded file or double click on the download link on the Firefox download windows
remember to save and close all the works and then click OK
it will takes little time to install on your computer
and then it will ask you to install sinhala enabling pack on your PC
click Next
Check agree button and click Next
finally click Finish
After install select Start --> Turn off computer --> Turn off (start menu icon --> 'u' -->' r')
After restart you can see language bar on bottom right corner of your task bar and language icons on the system tray.
Now you can start typing and wive any Sinhalese and Tamil web page on the internet
to start typing in Sinhala first you need to know the sinhala key layout download Wijesekara Sinhalese keyboard layout hear and take a printout
(click on this image and when its open larger right click on it and select save as)
Now Lets start typing
Font changing is unique to the window that u currently use, its mean if you used note pad to type the sinhala Unicode u have to open the Notepad and when its on focused then left click on the language bar and change the language type using popup selector as shown in picture below
remember the language change is only applied to the selected window only if you have to type in sinhala or tamil in the Word document on the same time you have to change the language type like this when the word document is selected
Enjoy chatting in sinhala on Facebook and other social networks and improve your typing skill with sinhala it will open lot of job opportunity for you.
