General Overview:

Need for phonetic editing has its roots in different keyboard layouts developed and used by different users and multiple fonts which in combination failed to produce unique easy to use compatible typing/editing solution. The problem is more in the area of software solutions being developed for different Indic Languages. Web based Direct editing or phonetic editing is an implementation which allows user to type in the context using phonetic key patterns across different keyboards, browsers and different Indic scripts.

What is gamabhana?

gamabhana is an open source implementation that uses purely client side java script to enable phonetics in editable html tags such as div (not editable in mozilla firefox) , iframe, input, textarea, document so that you can type in the context phonetically in the selected Indic script with transliteration capabilities that support unicode fonts with the help of  pre-designed gamabhana maps.

With gamabhana library and gamabhana phonetic maps you can:

• Attach phonetics to editable html tags such as iframe and/or input (single line) and/or textarea and/or document.
• Design your own transliteration maps for any language/script.
• Achieve Unicode support across browsers, applications, platforms.
• Type in the context phonetically ( direct input method) in IE ( V 5 above) and Firefox Mozilla.

How does gamabhan work?

gamabhana - High Level Design:

+======================+
 |       Transliteration Map          |
+======================+
      key-        ^          unicode   
  sequence        v      sequence
+-------------------------------------------+
 |  gamabhana phonetic parser  |
+-------------------------------------------+
      key        ^   v      result-key
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+                          unicode phonem                         ___________________
 |            customizable Special  Editing Engine           |------------------------------------------------------------------------->|             E                 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+                                                                          |             d                  |
        keyboard event     ^  v    [return-event]                                                                                            |              i                  |
+=================================+                        phonems that require no parsing              |              t                 |
 |            gamabhana keyboard handler            |  - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >|              b                 |
+=================================+                                                                                    |              l                  |
        keyboard event ^ v [return-event]                                                                                                    |              e                 |
+=================================+                            event handling                                    |                                |
 |            gamabhana event listener                  |<========================================= |              t                 |
+=================================+        object binding: gamabhanaPhoneticHandler              |              a                |
                                                                                                                                                          |              g                |

gamabhana is easy to customize if you are aware of keyboard event handling capabilities of each browser.
Currently it supports Internet Explorer ( V. 5 onwards) and mozilla Firefox.

The new version uses hybrid approach that leads to object oriented paradigm with prototyping.
New prototype facilitates developer to use, extend and expand JavaScript class to suit different variations.

Release notes, bug reports on versions prior to 07.10.14 are available here.