Language tools

Rationale
If you can't type in your language, or if your operating system doesn't natively have the ability to display your language on the web, you are impeded from reading or editing Wikimedia projects. As Wikimedia reaches into strategic priority regions like India, ensuring that we eliminate all barriers to access and participation is escalating in priority.

Key deliverables
Deliverables of this project will likely include:
 * Consistent support for web fonts as needed, building on the web fonts extension
 * Consistent availability of input methods for all supported languages in any Wikimedia projects (e.g. it should be possible to type in Hindi on the English Wikipedia), building on the Narayam extension
 * Support for new input methods (including potentially on-screen keyboards) and new character sets
 * Porting/implementing relevant support on mobile devices
 * Improvement of RTL support, especially in a bidirectional context
 * Resolution of other critical issues, e.g. resolve encoding conflicts with search engines

Timeline

 * The team is forming in July/August, at which point requirements gathering, prioritization and development will begin to officially kick off.

Additional documents

 * User requirements:
 * Internationalization and localization tools/Requirements/Indic language support
 * Specifications:
 * Software design document:
 * Test plan:
 * Documentation plan:
 * User interface design docs:
 * Schedule:
 * Task management:
 * Release management plan:
 * Communications plan:
 * Status updates

Communications

 * Kiwix localisation is supported at translatewiki.net, Gerard Meijssen, Wikimedia blog, August 20th, 2011.
 * The Localisation team brings you input methods, Gerard Meijssen, Wikimedia blog, September 15, 2011.
 * Babel extension live on the WMF projects, Gerard Meijssen, Wikimedia blog, September 21st, 2011