Introduction

WashRa 4.0 consists of a set of Ethiopic fonts and a keyboard layout and it allows users to produce miscellaneous works with Unicode compatible programs. The fonts entirely support the Ethiopic standard included in Unicode 3.0. The keyboard layout is designed specifically for this purpose; unfortunately, the current version runs only under Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server. MSKLC¹ was used to generate the layout and it does have a couple of short-comings, but overall it works very well. WashRa is now an open-source project distributed free under GPL license.

This section provides downloading and setup instruction and keyboard layout guide. The Amharic and English reference manuals included in the distribution provide more information.

Download

• Download WashRa 4.0 (Fonts, Keyboard Layout, Documentation)
• WashRa Manual (Amharic)   WashRa Manual (English)
• Download WashRa Fonts (This distribution includes the fonts only; not the keyboard layout and documentation)
• Download Font: Ethiopia Jiret (Font Only)
• Download Sabaean Font (Font Only)

Installation

• From the location where you have saved "washra4-0.exe", perform the self-extracting process by double clicking the file. You should see a dialog box similar to the one shown below. Click the "Browse" button and give the "Desktop" as the unzip folder, and then click the "Unzip" button.

• Now, you should see on the desktop the folder "washra4-0"; enter to this folder by double clicking it. Among the list of files, there are two of them with the extension "msi" and these are the files that we are going to install step by step as outlined below.
• Double click the "Washra4-0-Fonts.msi" file. The setup program will start with a welcome statement; now just click "Next" and move to the next step. You will be prompted to provide a destination folder for WashRa, but you can accept the default location and click "Next" to continue the installation and "Close" to finish the fonts installation. Please note that the reference manuals also will be installed and they can be accessed from Start-->All Programs-->WashRa 4.0.
• Return to the "washra4-0" folder, and start setting up the layout by double clicking the "WashRa- Keyboard-Layout.msi" file. Unless there is a problem, the installation will complete. Click the "Close" button. Now, we are ready to configure the keyboard layout with Windows.
• The steps from here on involve adding the keyboard layout into Language Options. Click Start-->Control Panel-->Regional and Language Options.
• Click the Language tab. It should look similar to the dialog box shown below.
  
• Click the Details ... button. This will take you to the following dialogbox or similar.
  
• Click the Add button. Under the "Add Input Language" dialogbox, click/check the Keyboard Layout/IMF checkbox. Right there, from the enabled listbox, select WashRa Keyboard Layout and click Ok.
• Click the Language Bar button, check/enable all the checkbox, and click Ok. This will introduce a language bar on the desktop.
  
• Now, click Ok to get back to the Language tab, then click the Apply button.

One way to check if the setup and configuration is successful is by looking at the list of keyboard layouts in the language bar on the desktop. You should see there WashRa Keyboard Layout.

WashRa Keyboard Layout and Usage

Switching Keyboard: You may switch between different keyboard layouts by just pressing Ctrl+Shift or by clicking the keyboard icon on the language bar and then select the layout you want.

The following set of figures show the WashRa layout; how each pair of keys stroke is mapped to Ethiopic character. Entering an Ethiopic character requires pressing a pair of keys and always the basic key must be entered first, then the qualifier key. The result is shown after each pair of key strokes entry is completed. The following figure illustrates this.

[Ethiopic 4th Order Supplement]

[Ethiopic punctuation marks] There is one-to-one key mapping to most of punctuation marks.

[Ethiopic digits] Two key strokes are ampped to each Ethiopic digits.

References

¹visit http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx