Dasher Version 4.1.8
--------------------

This is Dasher 4.1.8, the next in the development series leading
up to 4.2.0, which will hopefully be released with GNOME 2.16. This
release should be considered a preview for those of you wishing to try
out the latest features. For a stable version of Dasher, please
download a release from the 4.0 series.

Dasher is a zooming predictive text entry system, designed for situations
where keyboard input is impractical (for instance, accessibility or PDAs). It
is usable with highly limited amounts of physical input while still allowing
high rates of text entry.

Dasher is Free software released under the GPL. Further documentation
may be found in the Doc/ subdirectory

New In 4.1.8
------------
* Improvements to dynamic button modes
* Many bugfixes

New In 4.1.7
------------
* One line bugfix repairing build without GNOME a11y support

New In 4.1.6
------------
* Redesigned preferences dialogue
* Updated two button dynamic mode
* Bugfixes

New In 4.1.5
------------
* Various bugfixes

New In 4.1.4
------------
* Yet more bugfixes
* Updated alphabet and colour files

New In 4.1.3
------------
* Various bugfixes

New In 4.1.2
------------
* Various bugfixes
* Improved interaction with desktop environment

New In 4.1.1
------------
* Minor fixes to build system

New In 4.1.0
------------
* Considerable internal rewriting
* Introduction of 'application styles' - the aim here is to improve
  integration with the desktop.
* Improved button control.
* Improved support for Hiragana to Kanji conversion.
* Prototype support for the Maemo environment as used on the Nokia N770.
* Many bug fixes
* And anything else I've forgotten...

Known Issues
------------
* Not all new features have been ported to Windows.
* There is a known memory leak in Japanese mode.
* Button mode may not interact well with the direct entry application 
  style.

Requirements
------------
Dasher makes use of the following third party software (note that this
list is potentially inaccurate or incomplete - please send any
corrections to 'dasher@mrao.cam.ac.uk'):

General:
 * The Expat XML parser (required)

Linux:
 * Autotools (required, build only)
 * Intltool (required, build only)
 * Libtool (required, build only)
 * GTK+ (2.2 or greated) (required)
 * GNOME (optional, but highly recommended)
 * GNOME Speech (optional)
 * Libcanna (optional, for Hiragana to Kanji conversion)

MS Windows:
 * MS Speech API (optional)
 * MS Table API (optional - required for tablet start/stop mode)

MS Windows CE:
 * (not sure - if anyone knows then please fill this in)

Installation Instructions
-------------------------
Please see the file INSTALL.<platform> for details on how to build and
install Dasher from source on your host system.

Font Support
------------
Dasher includes some alphabets which require fonts that you probably don't 
have installed; for example, for the International Phonetic Alphabet, Korean
and Hiragana (Japanese).  We aren't legally allowed to distribute a font for
the IPA, but you can download one yourself from:  

   http://www.sil.org/computing/fonts/encore-ipa.html

Kanji Entry
-----------

As of Dasher 3.99.0, experimental support for Japanese Kanji entry
by Hiragana conversion. To build Dasher with this enabled on Linux,
you need the libcanna conversion library. You also need to be able to
access a canna conversion server, which can be on the local machine or
over a network. Please note that Dasher will not start a canna server
if none is running - you must do so manually before running Dasher. 
Please see the Canna documentation for more details.

Kanji conversion in Microsoft Windows is via the IME API, which is
part of Windows XP and Asian builds of earlier Windows
versions. Support for Kanji conversion in Dasher under Windows is
still very much under development, so please take care when trying
it out. In particular, Dasher will crash if you try to enable Kanji
conversion on a machine which does not have Japanese localisation
installed.

To use Kanji conversion in Dasher, you must select 'Japanese Canna'
from the 'Alphabet' section of the preferences dialogue, and the
Japanese language model from the 'Prediction' section.

Support and Feedback
--------------------
Please file any bug reports in the GNOME Bugzilla system:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/

using the 'dasher' package name. We also appreciate general feedback -
please send any comments to 'dasher@mrao.cam.ac.uk'.

You can find the Dasher website at:

  http://www.dasher.org.uk/

Thank you for trying Dasher,

The Dasher Team

