Swarachakra is a logically ordered keyboard, found to be easy to use for newbies

"ಜಯ ಭಾರತ ಜನನಿಯ ತನುಜಾತೆ, ಜಯ ಹೇ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಮಾತೆ!"-ಕುವೆಂಪು. If your device can display this sentence in Kannada perfectly, then your device supports Kannada and Swarachakra should also work well. If you do not see any text, or if some of the words are incorrect, Swarachakra may not work well.

Swarachakra Kannada(ಸ್ವರಚಕ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ) is a touch-screen keyboard for inputting text in Kannada. (Swarachakra is also available in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Konkani and Tamil). Swarachakra uses a logically ordered design based on the structure of Kannada script. Swarachakra displays the consonants sequenced according to the logical structure of Kannada script, phonetically grouped and arranged in a grid similar to those found in most school textbooks.

Typing with Swarachakra

In Kannada, we frequently need to type a combination of a consonant(ಧ) and a matra(ೊ) like ಧ+ೊ=ಧೊ. When you touch a consonant, a chakra with combination of consonants and 10 frequent matras pops up (ಧಾ, ಧಿ, ಧೀ, ಧು, ಧೂ, ಧೆ, ಧೇ, ಧೊ, ಧೋ, ಧ್). The chakra gives a preview of the possible character combinations. To select a combination, you slide the stylus or finger towards it.

Typing conjuncts like ಕ್ರಿ, ಸ್ಥ, ಚ್ಯ is particularly hard for most people. Swarachakra makes it easy. First tap on the first part of the combination and select the halant from the chakra (ಸ+್). Swarachakra then shows a preview of all possible conjuncts that begin with that consonant (ಸ+್+ತ=ಸ್ತ; ಸ+್+ಥ=ಸ್ಥ etc.). If you need to add a matra, select it from the new chakra like earlier (ಸ್ಥಾ, ಸ್ಥಿ, ಸ್ಥೀ, ಸ್ಥು, ಸ್ಥೂ..).

To type a rafar (ರ್ಥ), a rashtrachinha (ಟ್ರ), first select the corresponding key from the right-most bottom keys, and then type as usual.

Complete vowels (ಅ, ಆ, ಇ, ಈ, ಉ, ಊ, ಎ, ಏ, ಒ, ಓ) appear in a separate chakra on the bottom right. The less used vowels and matras are next to it (ಐ, ಔ, ಋ, ೃ, ೠ, ೄ, ಌ, ೡ, ಽ, ಼). The dependent vowels ೈ and ೌ are on the rightmost column. Numerals, symbols and rarely used characters appear on a shift. You could also switch to the QWERTY keypad temporarily to input English characters.

Installing Swarachakra

First, install Swarachakra Kannada by clicking the “Install” button above.

Next, you need to “enable” the keyboard. To enable, open “Settings”, select “Language and Input” and check the box in front of ಸ್ವರಚಕ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ(Swarachakra Kannada) in the “Keyboard and input methods” section.

Finally, click on the “Default” option in the “Keyboard and input methods” section, and select ಸ್ವರಚಕ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ(Swarachakra Kannada) as the default keyboard. (Sorry, but that’s how Android works)

NOTE: Swarachakra is designed for Android 4.0 (ICS) onwards. It does not work right now on older versions because they do not have Unicode support.