Swarachakra Kannada Keyboard 2.4

Jaya Bharata jananiya tanujate, Jaya he Karnataka mate! - Kuvempu. If your device can display this sentence in Kannada perfectly, then your device supports Kannada and Swarachakra should also work well.

Swarachakra Kannada (ಸ್ವರಚಕ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ) is a touch-screen keyboard designed for inputting text in Kannada. Swarachakra is also available in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Konkani, and Tamil. The keyboard utilizes a logically ordered design based on the structure of the Kannada script, displaying consonants in a grid format similar to those found in educational materials.

Typing with Swarachakra

In Kannada, it is common to type a combination of a consonant (ಧ) and a matra (ೊ) like ಧ+ೊ=ಧೊ. Swarachakra simplifies this process by displaying a chakra with combinations of consonants and frequent matras when a consonant is touched. To select a combination, users can slide the stylus or finger towards it.

Typing conjuncts such as ಕ್ರಿ, ಸ್ಥ, ಚ್ಯ is made easier with Swarachakra. By tapping on the first part of the combination and selecting the halant from the chakra (ಸ+್), users are presented with previews of possible conjuncts that begin with that consonant (ಸ+್+ತ=ಸ್ತ; ಸ+್+ಥ=ಸ್ಥ, etc.). If a matra needs to be added, it can be selected from the chakra.

To type characters like rāfar (ರ್ಥ) or rāshtrachinha (ಟ್ರ), users can select the corresponding key from the right-most bottom keys and proceed with typing as usual. Complete vowels, less commonly used vowels and matras, dependent vowels, numerals, symbols, and rarely used characters are all conveniently placed within the keyboard interface.

Installing Swarachakra

To install Swarachakra Kannada, click the “Install” button above. Subsequently, ensure you enable the keyboard by navigating to “Settings,” selecting “Language and Input,” and checking the box next to Swarachakra Kannada. Set Swarachakra Kannada as the default keyboard by following the instructions under “Default” in the “Keyboard and input methods” section in order to use it seamlessly on your device.

NOTE: Swarachakra is compatible with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) onwards; it may not function correctly on older versions due to a lack of Unicode support.