Dasher version 3.99.3 (4.0 preview 4)
------------------------------------- 

This is Dasher 3.99.3, the fourth preview release of the upcoming 4.0
series. This version is `feature frozen' for 4.0, but it is still to
some extent development code, and should therefore be considered
potentially unstable. The full 4.0 release will coincide with the
release of GNOME 2.14, with another 3.99 being produced for the GNOME
beta 2. See:

http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointThirteen

for details of the release schedule.

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 Features In 3.99.3
----------------------
 * Bugfix - missing Win32 source files in archive

New Features In 3.99.2
----------------------
 * Improved button mode support
 * Cairo support ported from 3.2 branch
 * Win32 should build from tarball again
 * Bugfixes

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)

Known Issues
------------
 * Win32 probably doesn't build from the tarball - please use CVS.
 * Button mode implementation is incomplete (not all modes present,
   and limited UI support for configuration options)

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
-----------

Dasher 3.99.0 contains 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 'Hiragana ... (For
use with Hapanese language model)' 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

