[kolok]

I've seen threads here and elsewhere about the lack of different language keyboard input on the PlayBook.

Please don't say "there's an app for that" because there shouldn't be an "app for that" - these ought to be incorporated into the OS for direct virtual keyboard input.

I don't know if this qualifies, but perhaps a "petition" of sorts for the folks at RIM.
Please include direct keyboard input languages into the PlayBook such as:
(red = missing input language)


Asian: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, etc
European Cyrillic: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian
East European: Georgian, Armenian
Central European: Slovenian, Slovakian
North European: Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, Finnish
Arabic
Farsi
Hindi


If it makes it any easier, perhaps group the languages by region which user may select which draws-up a sub-menu with the specific language thus available

Since all encoding is in UTF-8, it shouldn't be that big a deal and wouldn't take that much extra physical space as part of the OS, but it seems like a fair oversight that could otherwise make the PlayBook really shine and polished.. Stand out from other tablet operating systems (oh, wait.. i-pad already has this ability).

Are there any plans for this in future OS updates?

take a look at i-pad's list straight out of the box:

--> Language support for English (U.S.), English (UK), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

--> Keyboard support for English (U.S.), English (UK), Chinese - Simplified (Handwriting, Pinyin, Stroke), Chinese - Traditional (Handwriting, Pinyin, Zhuyin, Cangjie, Stroke), French, French (Canadian), French (Switzerland), German (Germany), German (Switzerland), Italian, Japanese (Romaji, Kana), Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cherokee, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Emoji, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic/Latin), Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

--> Dictionary support (enables predictive text and autocorrect) for English (U.S.), English (UK), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, French (Canadian), French (Switzerland), German, Italian, Japanese (Romaji, Kana), Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Catalan, Cherokee, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

[anon(3641385)]

Kolok I'm not sure if we're looking at the same thing but the little globe icon on the keyboard when I'm in emails does offer quite a variety of languages, and if say I press on Greek, then the keyboard shows all Greek letters.

The languages on offer are:

English US
English UK
French
Spanish
German
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese Brazil
Portuguese Portugal
Galego
etc etc etc

[luqman24]

The letters on mine stay the same except for the space "button" which change when the language is change but all other letters don't change from English.

PS: I'm on OS 2.1.0.840 so that might be why that's happening.

[anon(3641385)]

Luqman try Greek or what I think is Russian.

[anon(3641385)]

With a number of the languages on offer it seems that the English keyboard stays - but not all.

Does the keyboard language change reflect the countries/languages where the Playbook is sold?

[smartie88]

With a number of the languages on offer it seems that the English keyboard stays - but not all.

Does the keyboard language change reflect the countries/languages where the Playbook is sold?

that is a silly method. a chinese wants to type chinese regardless in china, japan,UK, US or Canada

[angkorbeer]

Heavens1,

The languages that Kolok has suggested don't use the Latin alphabet (a, b, c..., z). That's what he means.

อย่างเช่นภาษาไทย (Translation: For example the Thai language.)

[kolok]

Kolok I'm not sure if we're looking at the same thing but the little globe icon on the keyboard when I'm in emails does offer quite a variety of languages, and if say I press on Greek, then the keyboard shows all Greek letters.

The languages on offer are:

English US
English UK
French
Spanish
German
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese Brazil
Portuguese Portugal
Galego
etc etc etc

Try using that globe icon elsewhere, like when entering a search string in Bing/Google/Yahoo, whatever. There doesn't seem to be any consistency as to when you can choose a particular language keyboard (Thai, Hebrew, Serbian, Arabic, Ukrainian, what-have-you) for direct input.

Also in my case (2.0.1.358) only options I have are English US, English UK, French, German, and something else (sorry can't tell you know, PlayBook's gone to sleep). Straight from the get-go. No other choice.

When phone's bridged with the playbook and using BBM, when pressing the globe icon, I still don't get anything but the English keyboard ... also when pressing that icon (say, French), the only thing that changes is the language on the spacebar (Espace).

Shouldn't this (changing the language of direct entry) be an all-encompassing platform feature?

I don't know how the folks at RIM coded this, but are there different, multiple sources of the virtual keyboard used depending on what is accessed and depending on input area? Example when invoking email app, pressing the "globe" will offer a virtual keyboard that includes access to full list of input languages (keyboard changes to reflect selected language), but when entering characters in the browser, the user's only presented with the virtual keyboard with option of only 4-5 "languages"....

I mean, virtual keyboard should remain static right across the board with option of any language input regardless of app (unless it's some Android import).

[mandony]

OP is correct.
Various BB phone OS's do contain the Far Eastern native KB (Chinese, Japanese, Korean ...). PB does not include this set.

I assume the complete set will come when BB10 phones are released and the companion BB10 update comes to PB.

Yes, countries where RIM has no PB distribution channel (except HK for Chinese) have been but on the back-burner for native Far Eastern KB.

It is also true, if you have a BB phone with an OS Far Eastern language pack, Bridge will not connect this pack to the PB if you use the PB to write email (etc.). All native KB operations are limited to the BB phone.

[pointman]

Petition is worthless. They know its an issue, they don't care.

[Sucroid]

Android and iOS might not be as powerful as QNX for mobile devices. But at least they take care of the basics for a proper user experience. There is a reason why ipads are selling like hotcakes even though they are much more expensive.

Anyway, the Dev Alpha has a lot more language support. So it is at least coming to BB10.

[aha]

Petition is worthless. They know its an issue, they don't care.

It's not that they don't care, it's that they have other priorities.

[Todor Ninov]

Please include Bulgarian as well. It takes forever to try to write e-mail with Russian symbols.

[dave_h_946]

To the OP (and maybe others).
Go to settings (gear icon) ---> Keyboard ---> keyboard type choose automatic. When on QWERTY (or QWERTZ, AZERTY) the buttons will not change from English simply because these letters do not exist in all languages. The only change will be on the SPACE. Maybe this is the root of your problem? Just an idea.

[kolok]

To the OP (and maybe others).
Go to settings (gear icon) ---> Keyboard ---> keyboard type choose automatic. When on QWERTY (or QWERTZ, AZERTY) the buttons will not change from English simply because these letters do not exist in all languages. The only change will be on the SPACE. Maybe this is the root of your problem? Just an idea.

Thanks, that worked!!

However, there are a slew of language input options missing in this list:

Cyrillic (Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian)
North European (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish - well there is "Norsk")
East European (Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, Slovakian)
Arabic
Farsi
Hebrew
Asian (pretty much all of them)

I'll update the list in the original post to reflect that.

Still would like to know why RIM has not included these and if there are any plans to do so in future OS updates? Again, it's not like it was would take up a tremendous amount of space or something - heck, give me the source code and I'd be glad to do it gratis ...

[kolok]

Petition is worthless. They know its an issue, they don't care.

I think they do, they just need a wee-bit of a push.
A nudge or two to RIM from CrackBerry reps (Kevin, others) would get some attention as well.

Thing is, wonder if anyone from RIM gets to see this on their own without the need for a nudge? Also, would be nice to get some feedback as to reasoning why they chose not to incorporate those languages to begin with.

I've read elsewhere (many different sites) that ppl dumped the PlayBook for other products because the others offer all the languages listed right out of the box. Why not the PlayBook??

[Sucroid]

Finally debricked my Dev Alpha. The OS took over 3 hours to download. Crazy.

Anyway, Japanese not working. Korean not working. Chinese pinyin input not working. There are a couple of other Chinese input that I have no idea how to use. But handwritten Chinese input works. Russian seems to be working. At least the Cyrillic alphabets are showing up so I guess that works.

It's unbelievable that RIM can't get multilingual support baked in when Macs have been having excellent multilingual support for ages.

[kolok]

Only the Russian keyboard is present on the PlayBook. The Russian language differs from Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian. Although using a majority of similar Cyrillic characters, they all have particular characters which are not present in the Russian language which make them unique in their own right.

A good friend of mine is of Ukrainian background and assures me the two character-sets are different by 5 letters on the keyboard - which is significant enough. He also speaks Serbian and says the same about the differences with Russian. As someone else pointed out in the thread, Bulgarian also is quite different incorporating characters void in the Russian alphabet.

Russian is not all-encompassing. Take a look at UTF-8 on the internet, more specifically Cyrillic - you'll see the difference.

You're right it and as I mentioned before, it seems a fair oversight on RIM's part to omit so many input languages on the PlayBook, particularly since it's all coded in UTF-8.

[pointman]

It's not that they don't care, it's that they have other priorities.

its RIM, not some mom and pop shop. They don't care. They sell PlayBooks all over the world, but neglect language support. Lack of caring. If that is not the case, its incompetence cause they don't know how to remedy the issue. Simple as that.

[pointman]

I think they do, they just need a wee-bit of a push.
A nudge or two to RIM from CrackBerry reps (Kevin, others) would get some attention as well.

Thing is, wonder if anyone from RIM gets to see this on their own without the need for a nudge? Also, would be nice to get some feedback as to reasoning why they chose not to incorporate those languages to begin with.

I've read elsewhere (many different sites) that ppl dumped the PlayBook for other products because the others offer all the languages listed right out of the box. Why not the PlayBook??

We've all been patient. Most of us have stuck by RIM even while they have been spiraling out of control. The time frame is too long. The original PlayBook has seen competitors make major strides, and even RIM has released the latest PlayBook product. Soon after I paid major dollars for my 64GB PB, it become a novelty item with the major price drop they allowed because of the lacking product they put out. Enough is enough. Language support is long overdue. If it were some other component, it would be a case of "too little too late" at this point, but since its a language situation where most of us won't suddenly forget languages we desire, that isn't the case.. until we all decide to just dump RIM and move on.

You must be joking if you think that a site owner or a rep of it is going to make RIM all of a sudden address what is a major issue to a large demographic of their tablets. Again, RIM knows the issue and has done nothing to remedy it. Keep in mind how long its been since the PB was released. A year in technology is a near lifetime.

You say you want to hear from them on why it hasn't been addressed... the silence says it all.

[kill_9]

It's not that they don't care, it's that they have other priorities.

Maybe BlackBerry 10 will offer a broader language selection considering the global reach of technology. If I only knew English and say Portuguese but the BlackBerry PlayBook virtual keyboard only offered English, French, and Hebrew, I would not be happy when most of my use requires Portuguese. Good luck to the OP with the petition.

[WatFrog]

The globe icon does more than just change the keyboard layout or character set (only if set to automatic in the keyboard configuration): I myself use it a lot because I constantly switch between English and French, and switching languages does change dictionaries for predictive input and autocorrect. However, autosuggest/autocorrect do not work in Android apps.

If I set the keyboard layout to automatic in the configuration setting, the keyboard changes to cyrillic when selecting Russian, and greek alphabet when choosing Greek. Autosuggest also gives words in selected languages.

My guess is that other languages will come later, and most likely not before BB10 is released.

If RIM want to sell BB10 globally, they will have to include more input methods with more character sets in order to allow input in say Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese etc. along with dictionaries in these languages.

[diegonei]

Luqman try Greek or what I think is Russian.

Цххн! Эхэ!



OP, what version is iOS at right now? 5 going 6? PB OS is still getting to 2.1. Give it time, languages will come. There was a time it didn't even have mine (pt_br), so I understand the issue. But they will come.

[smartie88]

Цххн! Эхэ!

Click to view quoted image


OP, what version is iOS at right now? 5 going 6? PB OS is still getting to 2.1. Give it time, languages will come. There was a time it didn't even have mine (pt_br), so I understand the issue. But they will come.

BB10 is probably their last deadline. who will wait for BB11? multi language is not a new technology. people take it for granted

[kolok]

You must be joking if you think that a site owner or a rep of it is going to make RIM all of a sudden address what is a major issue to a large demographic of their tablets. Again, RIM knows the issue and has done nothing to remedy it. Keep in mind how long its been since the PB was released. A year in technology is a near lifetime.

You say you want to hear from them on why it hasn't been addressed... the silence says it all.

In a sense you're right regarding "silence says it all", but on the other hand, I believe that RIM does indeed at least acknowledge Kevin's input - he does, afterall, represent CrackBerry.com which is representative of how many BlackBerry & PlayBook users - thousands ?? And how many more users (potential buyers) that don't bother to register to a site such as this, or don't know of Crackberry.com?

Again, it wouldn't be all that difficult for RIM to add input languages to the PB and BB10 considering everything's coded in UTF-8.

Yeah, would be nice to hear *something* from RIM on the issue, perhaps you are right though: let's not hold out breath lest we end up suffocating ourselves.


*** EDIT:
- BTW, the iphone 3GS (released in 2009) already had all those languages listed as missing on the PlayBook on the first page, as did the first iteration of the ipad.