Tamil support: Ubuntu Drapper Beta, Gnome

["Shakthi Kannan" <x86processor gmail com>]

Greetings!

I have installed Ubuntu Dapper Beta on my T41 and running Gnome.
Installation was smooth. Treat me as a "new be" here.

I am currently testing tamil support in this distro with gnome. I have
installed ttf-indic-fonts, scim, gnome-language-ta et. al. My
inferences/doubts:

1. Able to use tamil keyboard input (UTF-8) with Gedit, Gaim, Abiword,
Vim and Mozilla Firefox.

2. Have setup CAPS lock key to switch between US and tamil unicode.

3. In gnome-termial, when doing a cat on a tamil file, the "dots" for
letters are printed separately, and certain double-characters are
interchanged:

http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads/tamil/terminal.jpg ... (I)

4. Gnome tamil interface is also good. I still need clarification on
couple of things:

Gaim, Firefox and Gedit automatically do the translation as per our
written tamil when I enter into US language (from gdm) and switch to
tamil unicode keyboard typing:

http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads/tamil/text-editor.jpg ... (II)

On the other hand, if I login into gdm with Tamil language gnome
interface, the above automatic translation does not happen. I get the
"o" and "oo" as unicode formats, as also seen from:

http://www.shakthimaan.com/downloads/tamil/terminal.jpg

Why is this so?

I'd like to use tamil gnome interface and also be able to get the
written tamil form for "o" and "oo" appended to the characters. How
can this be fixed?

5. Not all gnome menus have been translated to tamil. Whom should I
contact for this?

6. I am interested in a typing tutor for Tamil. I have looked at
Klavaro, and it uses UTF-8. But, again with UTF-8, the text displayed
is very different from our written tamil (I). Is there any way we can
write a gnome application for touch typing for Tamil with the actual
written form as seen in (II)?

7. What is the format in which a language dictionary should be
written, so that it can be imported from other necessary gnome
applications?

8. Is there a letter pronounciation gnome package for teaching
letters/pronounciation of words of a language that I am not aware of?

Appreciate any feedback.

Apologize for any incorrect terminology used as I am very new to this.

Thanking you,

SK

--
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com