Please delete old Cheyenne keyboard

Keyman
1

Please delete the old Keyman Cheyenne keyboard from this webpage:

https://secure.tavultesoft.com/keyman/downloads/keyboards/search.php?Submit=search&Search=cheyenne&x=34&y=16

I am working with the Cheyenne tribe right now and they are confused about which keyboard to download for typing their language. The old keyboard was designed before Unicode was available and required use of three special fonts designed by SIL. Several Cheyennes have downloaded both keyboards but they find this confusing. Since most Cheyennes today do not have the old SIL fonts, the old keyboard produces wrong results.

It would be fine to rename the remaining “Cheyenne - Unicode” keyboard to simply “Cheyenne”.

Thank you,
Wayne Leman

2

Hi Wayne

A couple thoughts how we could help reduce some confusion:

  1. With the upcoming Keyman 10 release, the Tavultesoft keyboard search will change to
    https://keyman.com/keyboards?q=cheyenne
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    image.png1000×337 23.7 KB

We can add some additional metadata files to the cheyenne keyboard page that will recommend them to go to cheyenne-unicode. For example, see the markings on https://keyman.com/keyboards/ipauni11

  1. Would you be open to making the cheyenne-unicode keyboard open source under the MIT license? This way, the Keyman community would be able to help maintain the keyboard. Some guides for keyboard submission are available at
    https://help.keyman.com/developer/keyboards/

This will be tracked as https://github.com/keymanapp/keyboards/issues/340

-Darcy

3

Darcy,

My reply to you was bounced back to me because I included the link to the Cheyenne language website which I maintain. I will now send my reply to you without the link. You can access the Cheyenne Keyman keyboard documentation at the “Cheyenne language website”. Just use those three words to Google for the url.

Wayne

Hi Darcy,

I think it would be better for the old Cheyenne keyboard to be retired. Most Cheyennes do not know what the label “Unicode” means so if that confusing part of the keyboard name can be removed it would help. No one is using the old SIL fonts required by the old Cheyenne keyboard anymore. If they do try to use the old keyboard it creates incorrect symbols on Cheyenne computer screens. Please do retire the old keyboard, if at all possible.

Yes, you are welcome to change the Unicode keyboard to open source status. Do you have the instructions for using the keyboard? If not, they are available from the Cheyenne language website, Keyman keyboard section:

(deleted url)

Xiexie,

Wayne

Show quoted text

4

@Phillip_Leckrone,

In a PM to me, Wayne attributed you as the author of Chey-Unicode.kmn. Do you grant @Lorna permission to release the keyboard under the MIT license?

-Darcy

5

Hi @wleman1949

Here’s my thoughts on this:

  1. I’m not keen on removing keyboards because there will always be someone who needs to edit old data.
  2. We can certainly make it much clearer that the Cheyenne (non-Unicode) keyboard is obsolete. We can update the keyboard_info for both keyboards and that should make this a lot clearer.
  3. We should not mark the Cheyenne keyboard as ‘deprecated’ by the Cheyenne Unicode keyboard, because they are not compatible: you cannot edit old Cheyenne non-Unicode data with the Cheyenne Unicode keyboard.
  4. Yes, as Darcy notes, this maintenance will be more visible in a few weeks when the old keyboard search is retired.

So, my suggestion is we clarify the description on both keyboards to make it clear that you shouldn’t install the old keyboard unless you know what you are doing :slight_smile: