Here is an official review (English) of Avro Keyboard for Admins/Mods:

Avro Keyboard: Complete Solution for Bangla Typing

Bangla Computing, the present: It has been a long time since we use Bangla in computers. Primitive ASCII technology evolutes to modern Unicode and makes us relieved from obstacles. New researches and inventions are taking place throughout the world to find even better solutions. Now a days Bangla computing doesn’t mean only Bangla typing, composing or printing; along with these we got full Bangla Language support in modern operating systems, creating full Bangla interface is now possible for software development, full searchable and sort able Bangla database systems are no more a dream and at the end user level we can make proper use of Bangla even in file/folder names, email, web sites or even in instant messaging. All these have become possible as we start following Unicode - an internationally recognized and technically reliable standard for all languages present in the world. Bangla computing is no longer a nightmare, now it can even dare to technically compete with English or any widely used language!

An input system: To use the written form of a language, computers need a proper input system. It may be keyboard, mouse, voice commands or OCR (optical character recognition). Since advanced methods are not yet implemented completely for Bangla, keyboard input is still a popular, reliable and most commonly used solution. So, to follow Unicode standard, we need a Unicode compliant keyboard interface.

Avro Keyboard as a solution: Avro Keyboard is the first Bangla keyboard interface for Windows operating system which begins to follow Unicode standard fully, and it may be a matter of pride that this wonderful work was developed in our country, Bangladesh. The first version was released in 26th March, 2003, and then there were 9 updated releases till this February, 2006. The latest version, Avro Keyboard 3.0.0 has become full featured Bangla software as it supports all popular methods for Bangla typing, including English to Bangla phonetic typing method, traditional keyboard layout based Bangla typing method with support for multiple keyboard layouts and even more mouse based click ‘n type Bangla input method for extremely novice users. Of course, each of these methods strictly follow latest Unicode 4.1 standard for Bangla typing. In this sense it is the most updated Unicode compliant Bangla input solution, too.

Additional Features: Additionally, Avro Keyboard supports Bangla (Bangladesh), Bangla (India), Assamese as “Input Language”/“Input Locale” even if they are not supported by operating system. It has a really flexible and customizable user interface, and supports single-key or combined-key based keyboard mode switching. Its handy Keyboard Layout Viewer can be used anytime to view the current keyboard layout on the screen. Actually there are a lot inside, which in detail can be viewed from publisher’s website.

International Reorganizations and popularity: Day by day Avro Keyboard is becoming a popular solution for Bangla typing in Windows. Even Microsoft has added this project in their online solution directory for Indic language input (www.bhashaindia.com/community/solutiondirectory/description/solution108). Unicode Consortium verified this project and added it in their “Useful Resources” list (http://www.unicode.org/onlinedat/resources.html). From the first version there were more than fifty thousands downloads monitored and the number of users are increasing each moment.

Limitation: As Windows 95, 98, Me doesn’t support Unicode, Avro Keyboard cannot run on these OS. It is gned to run in Windows 2000 or later versions of Windows (Xp, 2003, Vista…).

Free For All: The most impressive fact is Avro Keyboard is licensed as Freeware. Anyone can download and use it freely for personal or commercial purposes. There are no hidden fees, annoying advertisement or anything else; Avro Keyboard is just a neat freeware Bangla typing software. To download, visit the following website-
OmicronLab – www.OmicronLab.com