I installed Firefox add-on to convert Zawgyi encoding to Unicode 5.1. It was written by Keith Stribley of thanlwinsoft.org. It worked well. Therefore, I decided to remove Zawgyi font from my computer. I am now totally Unicode-compliant. (Disclaimer: the add-on might have some bugs; in my case, if I am typing a blog entry with movable type blogging software, using backspace key seems to remove some text. I sent an email to Keith about this issue.)
In addition to the add-on, I have also been using this Unicode keyboard by Keith Stribley. It is really easy compared to old Burmese keyboards where you have to remember Alt keys to type in stacked consonants. An example of stacked consonants would be တ္တ. Now all I have to do to type တ္တ in words like သတ္တဝါ /θaʔ tawa/ is use "`" key to stack တ /t/ below တ /t/. I typed in တ /t/ first and then type တ /t/ again. Then I just type in ` to stack it below the first တ /t/. No more memorizing of Alt keys combinations. Besides, I can also type just like I am writing. For example, ကြ can be typed က+ြ.
Well, I hope that all the operating systems will support Burmese unicode in the near future. I will be interested to see what popular proprietary systems like Zawgyi will do when that happens. Will they adopt the official Unicode or die? There seems to be some people who are trying to migrate Zawgyi to be compatible with Unicode 5.1. I do not know if they are part of official Zawgyi team. However, I wish them good luck for their efforts.
In addition to the add-on, I have also been using this Unicode keyboard by Keith Stribley. It is really easy compared to old Burmese keyboards where you have to remember Alt keys to type in stacked consonants. An example of stacked consonants would be တ္တ. Now all I have to do to type တ္တ in words like သတ္တဝါ /θaʔ tawa/ is use "`" key to stack တ /t/ below တ /t/. I typed in တ /t/ first and then type တ /t/ again. Then I just type in ` to stack it below the first တ /t/. No more memorizing of Alt keys combinations. Besides, I can also type just like I am writing. For example, ကြ can be typed က+ြ.
Well, I hope that all the operating systems will support Burmese unicode in the near future. I will be interested to see what popular proprietary systems like Zawgyi will do when that happens. Will they adopt the official Unicode or die? There seems to be some people who are trying to migrate Zawgyi to be compatible with Unicode 5.1. I do not know if they are part of official Zawgyi team. However, I wish them good luck for their efforts.
still hard to get rid of zawgyi coz my friends type zawgyi on gTalk. it's so hard to convince zawgyi crowd to use Unicode. weird!!!