Today we have a new OpenVanilla module which is called Esperanto Keyboard. We have upload the Mac OS X version to the download area of OpenVanilla Project hosted in Google Code. If you need to write in Esperanto on a Mac, it might be a choice. You can download it via the following URL: http://openvanilla.googlecode.com/files/OpenVanilla-Mac-0.8.0-Esperanto.zip

我們今天弄了一個供 OpenVanilla 0.8 使用的世界語（Esperanto）模組，您可以從 OpenVanilla 計畫的下載區下載 Mac OS X 版本。您必須要安裝 OpenVanilla 0.8 版，才能夠使用；在下載了前述檔案後，請將檔案放在 /Library/OpenVanilla/0.8/Modules/ 目錄下，重新登入，或是手動重新啟動 OpenVanilla 後，就可以在 OpenVanilla 選單中，看到「世界語」這個選項。

Before the installation, you have to download the OpenVanilla Input Method software and then install it, the current version is 0.8.3, you can choose to download the Leopard-limited version or another version which is based on an older architecture but supports both Leopard and Tiger. You will be asked to logout and relogin.

After relogin, launch the System Preference, choose the International settings, and then click on the “Input Menu” tab. Please check OpenVanilla or Leopard Vanilla from the input method list, you will see OpenVanilla appears in your Input Menu, which is located in the top-right corner in the Menu Bar, and you are now able to switch to OpenVanilla from other Keyboard layouts.

After the Esperanto Keyboard is downloaded, please unpack it and drag it into the /Library/OpenVanilla/0.8/Modules/. You may need to logout and re-login again, and then, you will see there is a new option called “Esperanto” or “世界語” in Chinese. Select it, now you are using the Esperanto keyboard layout.

The Esperanto keyboard is not very different from other Roman keyboards. It does only one thing, somebody told me that is called “x-convention”. It means, the Esperanto speakers need to type some special letters, such as ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ and ŭ, and they often series of letters with an ending “x” to represent them, for example, “cx” is mapping to ĉ.

There are already some softwares supports “x-convention” on Microsoft Windows and Linux, but people still need solutions on Mac. Well, I think the source codes are almost done with the OpenVanilla project, but we need people to test it and offer us suggestions and comments, because none of the developers of the OpenVanilla project knows about Esperanto.

世界語鍵盤基本上與一般的英數鍵盤無異，唯一的差別，就在於世界語的使用者需要一項叫做「x-convention」的功能。也就是，在世界語中，需要輸入 ĉ、ĝ、ĥ、ĵ、ŝ、ŭ 等特殊字母，而通常是透過輸入一串以 x 結尾的字母，轉換成這些字母，例如，輸入「cx」，就會轉換成 ĉ。目前在 Windows 與 Linux 上都已經有軟體提供這樣的輸入方式，但是 Mac 方面，似乎還是相當欠缺這方面的支援，而或許 OpenVanilla 的世界語模組，可以作為一種解決之道。

Enjoy typing. 🙂