Baybayin on Windows 10

Microsoft's new OS (update) "Windows 10" rolled out today, replacing and improving upon Windows 8+

My desktop's transition to Windows 10 from Win8+ went smoothly. I was expecting a couple of old driver issues (my youngest son had to update his video drivers) but my old machine breezed through the auto installation process. The new OS and its new Internet browser Microsoft Edge has a lot of neat little features.

Edge is simplified, clean, and performs well in most cases, but it’s lacking features you might expect of a modern browser. I noticed that downloads start automatically without giving me a choice of where the files are being stored. A lot of basic stuff feels surprisingly missing. To be fair, Microsoft noted that they started from scratch with Edge. ...it shows.

A neat new feature: you can post little text notes and draw all over webpages and send a copy to friends. It’s useful if you want to quickly share a screenshot of a site with some annotation, but sadly it gets old quick.

But as with most browsers, the one key thing I care about is performance, and Edge mostly delivers. Edge renders most popular websites smoothly, and load times are usually good. However, as I feared, it is not fully Unicode compatible. I can not find any way to change its default font settings and it does not display the Tagalog, Hanunuo, Buhid, and Tagbanwa Unicode range of characters on webpages and the new sticky-note feature has problems displaying stacked/ligatured markers (kudlit, virama, pamudpod). Character & marker combinations like the double-kudlit, possible in Firefox, is not rendered properly in Edge's notes (see image below).

Baybayin deficiencies in Microsoft's new "Edge" Internet browser.

(  ᜀᜁᜂ᜵ᜊᜃᜇᜄᜑᜎᜋᜈᜅᜉᜍᜐᜆᜏᜌ᜶ᜊᜒᜓ ᜊᜒ ᜊᜓ ᜊᜒ ᜒᜊᜓ ᜓᜊ᜔ ᜊ᜴  ᜶᜔ ᜶ᜓ )

The Unicode text (in parentheses) above should match the one in the image.

Another one of my other primary concerns is the default font keyboarding and the custom Baybayin Keyboard Layout. The only trouble I encountered was that I have to re-install the custom Segoe UI font (segoeui.ttf) and reboot my desktop afterwards. Everything else seems to be operating fine right now.

Baybayin fonts and custom keyboard layout works okay in Windows 10.

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Baybayin Keyboard Layout for Windows 7, 8+, 10

Not too late for Windows 8

Windows 8 makes it easier to switch between multi-language keyboards and custom layouts.

(UNICODE) Baybayin Keyboard Layout for Windows 8

1. Download the .zip file from here:
   https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByEkLQ7YrpPsaF92NlhpTkZDNDQ/view
   Save the file, then open and unzip the files.
2. Go to the folder where you unzipped the files.
3. Click Setup.exe and follow the instructions.
   It’ll tell you your keyboard was installed successfully, but you won’t be able to use it until you restart.
4. Restart the machine.
   Once the machine is restarted, you should be good to go.
5. On Windows 8 and 10, use WinKey + Space (press and hold the WinKey then hit the Space key) to switch between two or more keyboard layouts.
6. To be able to view Baybayin characters on the Windows 7, 8, and 10 On-Screen Keyboard & Touch Keyboards, the default font "Segoe UI" needed a custom update. I included the font in the .zip file.
   
   How to install the Segoe UI font (segoeui.ttf) over the existing one in your machine:
   
   
   • Create a backup of your original segoeui.ttf file by copying/moving it to another folder other than the system's "windows/font" folder.
   • Left click or right click to open the segoeui.ttf file that is included in this .zip file and look for the "install font" button/link.
   • Choose "Yes" if prompted to replace or overwrite the old Segoe UI font (if you left a copy in the windows/font folder).

Notes:
When using Unicode Baybayin Fonts online, only the people who has a Unicode Baybayin compliant font in their machines can view what you typed/posted. And Firefox has been the only browser that displays Baybayin Unicode consistently, other browsers are buggy.

Caveat Lector: I have not fully tested this in mobile tablet PCs and Windows 7. Also, again, please make sure you backed up your machine's original segoeui.ttf file, it is a system font.

UPDATE: [Oct. 18, 2013] If you have upgraded your Windows 8 to 8.1 like I have, you have to re-install the Segoe UI font again and reboot. You now also have to chose Segoe UI as Firefox's default font (options/content/fonts & colors). In the near future, I may have to provide updated versions of Times New Roman & Arial fonts for people who like to use those default typefaces.

UPDATE: [Aug. 6, 2014] Testers report that the keyboard layout works on Windows 7.

UPDATE: [July 29, 2015] The keyboard layout works on Windows 10. Note: After updating/upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 8+, you may need to re-install (re-overwrite) the Segoe UI font (segoeui.ttf) and reboot.

Enjoy!

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 For Linux and older versions of Windows, visit:

• Linux
• Windows 7, Vista, and XP

 Try the Keyboard Layout for Mac OSX: