4 This is Dasher 4.1.8, the next in the development series leading
5 up to 4.2.0, which will hopefully be released with GNOME 2.16. This
6 release should be considered a preview for those of you wishing to try
7 out the latest features. For a stable version of Dasher, please
8 download a release from the 4.0 series.
10 Dasher is a zooming predictive text entry system, designed for situations
11 where keyboard input is impractical (for instance, accessibility or PDAs). It
12 is usable with highly limited amounts of physical input while still allowing
13 high rates of text entry.
15 Dasher is Free software released under the GPL. Further documentation
16 may be found in the Doc/ subdirectory
20 * Improvements to dynamic button modes
25 * One line bugfix repairing build without GNOME a11y support
29 * Redesigned preferences dialogue
30 * Updated two button dynamic mode
40 * Updated alphabet and colour files
49 * Improved interaction with desktop environment
53 * Minor fixes to build system
57 * Considerable internal rewriting
58 * Introduction of 'application styles' - the aim here is to improve
59 integration with the desktop.
60 * Improved button control.
61 * Improved support for Hiragana to Kanji conversion.
62 * Prototype support for the Maemo environment as used on the Nokia N770.
64 * And anything else I've forgotten...
68 * Not all new features have been ported to Windows.
69 * There is a known memory leak in Japanese mode.
70 * Button mode may not interact well with the direct entry application
75 Dasher makes use of the following third party software (note that this
76 list is potentially inaccurate or incomplete - please send any
77 corrections to 'dasher@mrao.cam.ac.uk'):
80 * The Expat XML parser (required)
83 * Autotools (required, build only)
84 * Intltool (required, build only)
85 * Libtool (required, build only)
86 * GTK+ (2.2 or greated) (required)
87 * GNOME (optional, but highly recommended)
88 * GNOME Speech (optional)
89 * Libcanna (optional, for Hiragana to Kanji conversion)
92 * MS Speech API (optional)
93 * MS Table API (optional - required for tablet start/stop mode)
96 * (not sure - if anyone knows then please fill this in)
98 Installation Instructions
99 -------------------------
100 Please see the file INSTALL.<platform> for details on how to build and
101 install Dasher from source on your host system.
105 Dasher includes some alphabets which require fonts that you probably don't
106 have installed; for example, for the International Phonetic Alphabet, Korean
107 and Hiragana (Japanese). We aren't legally allowed to distribute a font for
108 the IPA, but you can download one yourself from:
110 http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/encore-ipa.html
115 As of Dasher 3.99.0, experimental support for Japanese Kanji entry
116 by Hiragana conversion. To build Dasher with this enabled on Linux,
117 you need the libcanna conversion library. You also need to be able to
118 access a canna conversion server, which can be on the local machine or
119 over a network. Please note that Dasher will not start a canna server
120 if none is running - you must do so manually before running Dasher.
121 Please see the Canna documentation for more details.
123 Kanji conversion in Microsoft Windows is via the IME API, which is
124 part of Windows XP and Asian builds of earlier Windows
125 versions. Support for Kanji conversion in Dasher under Windows is
126 still very much under development, so please take care when trying
127 it out. In particular, Dasher will crash if you try to enable Kanji
128 conversion on a machine which does not have Japanese localisation
131 To use Kanji conversion in Dasher, you must select 'Japanese Canna'
132 from the 'Alphabet' section of the preferences dialogue, and the
133 Japanese language model from the 'Prediction' section.
137 Please file any bug reports in the GNOME Bugzilla system:
139 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/
141 using the 'dasher' package name. We also appreciate general feedback -
142 please send any comments to 'dasher@mrao.cam.ac.uk'.
144 You can find the Dasher website at:
146 http://www.dasher.org.uk/
148 Thank you for trying Dasher,