1. First you need the Valai-Sri
Tamil font to enter Tamil characters into the applet.
Get it from the link provided at the top. It is free.
2. You may be prompted to install the new Java plugin if you have not done it
already. It will not take too much of time.
3. For Entering multiple characterts in a box (for eg. kow or ke etc.) press the Alt
key and then type the second letter. For first letter do not press the Alt key.
For example for entering ke into one single box you will have to press
'e' and 'Alt-k' characters on the same square. To enter the word Raman you will
be pressing the characters r Alt-a m [ Alt-f . (Remember to use the arrow
keys to move to the correct squares.)
4. To change a letter go to the square and just type the different character.
To erase the character press space bar. You can use arrow keys to navigate
between the squares. The clues will be changed/displayed only when squares with
numbers are highlighted.
5. The clues for this applet were created in a hurry for testing and hence may
not be good.
6. Open the character map of the font face in your machine so that you can refer
to that for typing the Tamil characters. Typing them is not very difficult. The
font is well designed so that phonetically most of the letters are similar to that
of english. For eg. k for ka, m for ma and n for na etc.
(In windows OS the character map will be in the 'accesseries' of the start menu.)
7. Further things to be developed are
* Direct answer checking in the applet itself.
* More generalization to include different sizes.
* With Mylai font the applet got aborted while testing and hence I
could not use that font. Best for internet I think is Valai-Sri font.
8. Any suggestions regarding the improvement of the applet is welcome.
Please send mail to epowerx@yahoo.com or enter in the guestbook entry linked below. Send mail if you have any problems also. Or else the easiest way send information to me is to fill in the form below and press send it in button.
9. Anybody who wants to create crosswords and publish can also contact me.
This applet is modular and will read from a file about the clue structure. So
it is easy to create new crosswords. I also beleive that it could easily be
ported to other Indian langauges.