⚠️ Update ⚠️

I've been informed by @jixtes that Google already has the Amharic-English implementation.

Head on to Google Input and select the Amharic input. It requires a working Internet connection for it to come-up with the predictions.

So now, eKeyboard project is more of a reimplementation.

HOL'UP [Update 2.0]

Google-Input (on Amharic) only has sound normalizing; no distance computation or auto-correction. Making eKeyboard [once again] a new endeavor

eKeyboard

Make typing Amharic [on mobile] great [again]. (no association)

Great!?, #holdUp

The mistake (imo) most mobile keyboard developers make is try to fit the entire Amharic alphabet (200+) on the small phone screen. This has been done in a variety of ways, but in general developers will display part of the alphabet on the screen and then create application rules for how to navigate between letters. This could be through pressing and holding a letter or sliding across the keyboard to navigate the different views or the very time-taking timeout approach where user types a letter and types another one after some time (type fast and rule breaks). Since the rules are not standardized and unintuitive, it can be complex for a user to adapt to. We see the issue reflected on many social media forums and messaging applications where users type Amharic-English to get around the frustration of strictly using Amharic Fidels.

Plan-Future...Dirty Sprite

The whole idea of eKeyboard revolves around by not introducing any new rules and building on-top of the community standardized rule of Amharic-English rule. If you can sound it out, then you can type on eKeyboard. #holdup that has been done before eko, right?

Yes and No.

ALL Amharic keyboards implementation of Amharic-English:

እኮ  -> e[pause]ko
ለምን -> le[pause]m[pause]n
ቆንጆ -> qo[pause]n[pause]jo

Well, that's not very efficient. They're all basically mapping each letter to the sound 📢 instead of putting emphasis to the word.

eKeyboard approach of Amharic-English:

እኮ  -> eko, eco
ለምን -> lemin, lmin, lemen
ቆንጆ -> konjo, qonjo, kongo

On eKeyboard you won't have to pause between letters, it just works.

How exactly is that going to work?

Well, I'm going to raise tax on the rich...

Seriously tho, the algorithm is in its early stages.

It has to guess words. I'll have to get a list of words and come up with a mapping algorithm that will match a string (basically like auto-correct for Amharic-English).

Mining ⛏

Well, I'm in a bit of a pickle here, turns out I can not find list of Amharic words so I'll have to mine for words. The obvious way is to scrape some Amharic websites. Which will be a violation of their copyright, almost all don't allow scraping for ANY purpose (in this case JUST extracting words and frequency). I'll try to get a consent, if not, I'll have to go down that road.

Roadmap

• Dictionary
• Algorithm
• iOS Keyboard (iOS 8+)
• Web - Chrome Plugin

Android?...Nope 😔, I have no interest on implementing the algorithm for Android. Any Android developer is welcome to implement the algorithm.

Implement the algorithm -> iOS Keyboard (iOS 8+) -> Web (Chrome Plugin).

Contributions

• @haworku
• Eskinder, co-founder of AhdooTec
• ሹክሹክታ Facebook group
• @jixtes
• @yonihahasis