Khmer Keyboard integration?
Please integrate Khmer Keyboard into OSX and iOS.
OS X has already had a Khmer keyboard since at least version 10.7. Do you really not see it?
To ask for a new feature in iOS, go to
31 replies
I found that the Mac built-in Khmer unicode has its faulties. I currently use 3rd-party khmer unicode installed in my Mac.
Mac should use key structure for keyboard which are used in Windows PC. in English, space are used in the sentences to separate from words to words. In Khmer, setence has no space, where space is used in Khmer as english's commas. 3rd-party keyboard, and PC keyboard, use invisible space (space key) to key in invisible space, so system knows the separate between words, and use visible space (shift+space) to key in the visible space. iWork don't support fully khmer, as it still show incorrect character.
I sent out my suggestion to Apple for the developmet of iOS and Mac OS, and hope the integration made soon to the next update.
Do Khmer users really normally type their texts full of invisible spaces? The same problem exists for Thai, but my understanding has been that for this language users do not type this way but rely on a dictionary to ensure proper line breaking. OS X has had such a dictionary for Thai for a long time now.
Could you provide details about how iWork shows incorrect characters for Khmer? Is it correct in TextEdit? Which characters exactly do not work right? I would like to support fixes with Apple. Send email with details if you prefer (tom at bluesky dot org).
PS Pages has a long-standing bug where it cannot support entry of the ZWJ or ZWNJ characters (200D, 200C). I think Khmer can require those for correct display of some characters, so that is one area where this app will not work (but TextEdit will) until Apple fixes it, even if the font and keyboard are OK.
Polain Wisey wrote:
Mac should use key structure for keyboard which ... use visible space (shift+space) to key in the visible space.
Makes sense, I think. A version of Apple's Khmer keyboard I modified to work that way can be had at
Khmer Unicode was implemented officially for the nation, and the invisible space is equivalent to English's space, and visible space is equal to English's comma. Basically, in English if you wrote a sentence without a space, the proofing or system will not be distiguisalbe between words, eg: Igotoschool. In Khmer, we wrote in hand writting without spaces in the sentence, where the space represents our commas in the sentence. To make proofing tool, system adjustment, system paragraph recognized each word in the sentence, after a word we need to press the Space Key to enter invisible space which you will not see the space by eye but the system has counted that the word has ended and begine a new word. If we want to enter visible space, we need to press Shift+Space.
Khmer using invisible space to separate word for the proofing tools. Dictionary will not know if we don't use invisible space, like english if you dont use space between words, the spelling will denote wrong spelling, in Khmer the same if you don't key the invisible space before you enter the second word, the spelling will denote wrong the same.
in iWork if i use Khmer unicode even with 3rd party khmer unicode installation when i press space key or press shift+space it will turn in the visible space (space using in English), i normally use MS office rather than iWork. But it the TextEdit it work for the visible and invisible space correctly. iWork will sometimes produce the combination of character wrongly for anterior vowel and hind vowel (i don't know how to call in english).
Polain Wisey wrote:
iWork will sometimes produce the combination of character wrongly for anterior vowel and hind vowel (i don't know how to call in english).
Could you give a specific example?
From my own testing, it looks like the Apple font Khmer Sangam MN is badly broken, even in TexEdit, as it cannot handle muusikatoan or triisap in comination with another superscript, as in
ស៊ី
ប៉ី
Polain Wisey wrote:
in iWork if i use Khmer unicode even with 3rd party khmer unicode installation when i press space key or press shift+space it will turn in the visible space
My tests indicate that this only happens when you have something like Helvetica in the Pages font window. If you make sure that a Khmer font is listed in the font window at the top of the page, the zero width space will in fact have zero width. Why it is wider when Helvetica is in the window I don't know.
You are right the terminology for the invisible space was call zero-width space.
Let me try out iWork's Page and Ms. Word 09 with the font Khmer OS:
as I type ការសិក្សាសង្គម it show in the Page app as ការ សិក្សាសង្គម . Between ការសិក្សា and សង្គម was embed a Zero-Width Space (invisible space), but it shows a visible space instead. The same we correctly return in Ms. Word 09. The words containing these incorrect display of zero-width space in iWork that were copied and pasted into Ms. Word 09 has displayed correctly as its zero-width space, rather than the incorrect visible space there.
Khmer MN or Khmer Sangam MN fonts displays total broken (eg: ការ). For you, muusikatoan or triisap displays in ស៊ី , ប៉ី does correctly handled, as long as muusikatoan or triisap added ( ី) combine with ស or ប, themuusikatoan or triisap turn itself to ( ុ )ុ (meaning: ស + ៊ + ី = ស៊ី) this is the spelling in Khmer only, nothing wrong in the combination.
Polain Wisey wrote:
Khmer MN or Khmer Sangam MN fonts displays total broken (eg: ការ).
Your example looks correct on my machine, could you explain what is broken there?
Polain Wisey wrote:
with the font Khmer OS:
as I type ការសិក្សាសង្គម it show in the Page app as ការ សិក្សាសង្គម . Between ការសិក្សា and សង្គម was embed a Zero-Width Space (invisible space), but it shows a visible space instead.
That's odd. Setting the font to Khmer MN in Pages I do not have this problem:
Polain Wisey wrote:
Khmer MN or Khmer Sangam MN fonts displays total broken (eg: ការ).
Your example looks correct on my machine. Could you explain what is broken in that case?
I'm glad to see this discussion. There are still many bugs with Khmer Unicode for Mac. Please also check the problem with NHOR (ញ) when it's subscript is added it doesn't show properly (ញ+្ ញ=ញ្ញ) still.
pisethinfo wrote:
Please also check the problem with NHOR (ញ) when it's subscript is added it doesn't show properly
Please use the camera icon to post a screenshot of what is the correct form. What I see on my machine is this.
Is that not correct? Do you see something else? If so, what font and what app are you using?
Khmer Keyboard integration?