Thibus Sinhala &
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(December 2007) Sinhala language software for computers have been present since the late (Samanala written in C) but no standard character representation system was put in place which resulted in proprietary character representation systems and fonts. In the wake of this CINTEC (Computer and Information Technology Council of Sri Lanka) introduced Sinhala within the UNICODE (16bit character technology) standard. Contents. Timeline 1985 – CINTEC establishes a committee for the use of Sinhala & Tamil in Computer Technology. 1st generation of software products 1987 -'DOS WordPerfect' Reverend Gangodavila Soma Thera, who was the chief incumbent at the Springvale Buddhist temple in Melbourne, Australia asked the Lay members of the temple to produce a Monthly Newsletter for the temple in Sinhala, called 'Bodu Puwath'. A lay person named Jayantha de Silva developed two HP PCL Sinhala fonts called Lihil and an intelligent Phonetic keyboard that was able to select letters based on context, together with a printer driver and screen fonts. All this was possible because the utilities to create the keyboard and printer driver were supplied with WordPerfect.
It was easy to use and was installed in many PCs owned by lay members and in the temple PC for typing articles. The program fell into disuse after Windows came online in 1990 as it did not support the WordPerfect macro keyboard. 1988 -'Super77' First trilingual word processor (DOS based) initially developed at 'Super Bits Computer Systems' katunayake and further improved up to the commercial level at IFS kandy (By Mr. Rohan Manamudali & Sampath Godamunne, under Prof. Cyril Ponnamperuma).
Later it was named as 'THIBUS Trilingual Software System' (Windows based) 1989 – “WadanTharuwa” (means WordStar in Sinhala) developed by the university of Colombo. It was one of the first commercial Sinhala word processing software products. (Gives inspiration to a new generation of developers to pursue further innovation in this field.) 1995 – Sarasavi, also developed by the University of Colombo is a new version of WadanTharuwa, the first Trilingual software of its kind. 1994/1996 – Samanala Scheme developed by Prasad Dharmasena. First ever Sinhala-English transliteration scheme of its kind. Signals a new era of Sinhala language solutions. 1995/96 – Thibus for Windows developed by Science Land (Pvt) Ltd.
The most successful commercial software. Also includes the first Sinhala/English/Tamil dictionary and word by word translation technology. 1997 – Helewadana for Windows developed by Microimage (Pvt) Ltd and Harsha Punasinghe.
The most notable competition to Thibus during that time. Provides almost every functionality provided in Thibus.
2nd Generation 1994 – TT Font Set KANDY jointly developed by M.Gruber and N.Meegamma as part of project work (German Sri Lankan Co-Operation programme, 1988 - 1996) 1998 – SLS1134/Unicode standards released by CINTEC for the first time. 1999 – SinWord developed by Niranjan Meegamanna and becomes popular among the internet users and the font aKandyNew becomes the web standard font. The software supports both Phonetic and Wijesekara keyboards. 2000 – Thibus and Helawadana release the new versions of their successful products. The new versions have the transliteration technology built in. (Very primitive stages of transliteration) 2002 – Madura English-Sinhala Dictionary is released. The dictionary software is distributed as freeware but its database is illegally copied from Thibus.
More than 230,000 English and Sinhala definitions are stored in this language translator software. You can find the exact Sinhala meaning of any English word and the exact English meaning of any Sinhala word easily. It includes complete glossaries of technical terms covering medicine, science, law, engineering, accounts, arts and many other sources. 2004 – Sinhala Text Box developed by Dasith Wijesiriwardena, a light weight word processor which supports publishing web pages to the internet and supports almost all the existing Fonts and Keyboards. One of the major draw backs being the lack of support for Unicode. Wins best software awards at CSITTS (Peradeniya University) 2003 and in Digital Fusion (APIIT) 2004. 3rd Generation (Unicode ERA) 2005 – Helewadana Nawayugaya a fully Unicode compatible software solution.
Thibus Sinhala Font Download
Takes advantage of developments of Windows and Linux and the new SLS1134 standard. Also integrates its Helawadana ME for mobile devices. 2006 – Sinhala SP for Windows developed by Native Innovation (Pvt) Ltd is a more complete software solution to its predecessor Sinhala Text Box.
Its developer (Dasith Wijesiriwardena) invents a new IME technology by the name of “FutureSinhala” which acts as a bridge between the proprietary fonts/keyboards and the new Unicode/SLS1134 standard. It has another technology aka “Singlish” which takes full advantage of Sinhala-English transliteration.
Considered the most complete and technically sound commercial software solution. 2007 – Sinhala Input Method Editor developed by SoftDevex (Pvt) Ltd that uses an exciting new input method for typing Sinhalese characters using conventional keyboard. 2007 – In order to provide the instructions on installation of Sinhala Unicode and provide the required software to the users, ICTA with the support of UCSC established www.fonts.lk. The servers and software for the site was provided free of charge by UCSC. ICTA developed 3 more websites in 2007 in order to extend the support provided by www.fonts.lk in local languages. While www.emadumilihal.lk provides information and software for using Tamil Unicode, www.locallanguages.lk provides information and software for using both Sinhala and Tamil Unicode. 2008 – Sri Lanka official online language translation solutions provider 'Madura English-Sinhala Dictionary' offers Sinhala Unicode compatible 'English to Sinhala' and 'Sinhala to English' online dictionary & language translator web edition.
Thibus To Unicode
2009 – Realtime Singlish (Another transliteration IME) was first released in April 13 of 2009 by Madura A., latest version is 2.0 (at time of editing). 2010 – SinhalaSoftware.com website launched by Amila Prasad Liyanage with the collaboration of a group of volunteer Sri Lankan software developers, In order to diffuse the usage of computer software in Sinhala language by allowing independent software developers to upload their software to the library, endorsing sinhalasoftware.com to be the largest Free Sinhala Software download portal in the world wide web with Sinhala Unicode support. References.