Avro Keyboard
Avro Keyboard is a free and open source graphical keyboard software developed by OmicronLab for the Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS, and several other software additionally adapted its phonetic layout for Android and iOS operating system. It is the first free Unicode and ANSI compliant Bengali keyboard interface for Windows. It was published on 26 March 2003.
Avro Keyboard has support for fixed keyboard layout and phonetic layout named "Avro Phonetic" that allows typing Bengali through romanized transliteration. Avro Keyboard comes with many additional features; auto correction, spell checker, a font fixer tool to set default Bengali font, a keyboard layout editor, Unicode to ANSI converter, ANSI to Unicode converter and a set of Bengali Unicode and ANSI fonts. This software is provided in a Standard Installer Edition and Portable Edition for Windows.
Development
Development of Avro Keyboard was started in 2003 by Mehdi Hasan Khan, a student from Mymensingh Medical College. It was first published on web for free download on 26 March 2003 under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Initially, it was developed in Visual Basic, which was later transferred to Delphi. After discussion, OmicronLab published the source code of Windows version under MPL 1.1 license with the Avro Keyboard 5.0.5 public beta 1.Initially, the Linux version of it, v0.0.1, was written in C++, using scim, licensed under GPLv2 on 2 September 2009. Later, it moved to iBus and JavaScript for its Linux version, first release on 20 July 2012, under MPL. Avro was further developed primarily by along with Rifat Un Nabi, Tanbin Islam Siyam, Ryan Kamal, Shabab Mustafa and Nipon Haque from OmicronLab. Currently, the JavaScript version is frozen, porting is under way to Golang, intended to be released in next major release.
The macOS version, written in Objective-C, was released on 15 December 2013. Several language implementation and bindings are maintained officially. A web-based version is under development.
Features
Portable edition of Avro Keyboard
A portable edition of the Avro keyboard for Windows was released on 2 July 2007. It does not need any installation or access as administrator and suitable to carry in portable media. It has a built-in 'automatic virtual font installer'. The size of the portable edition is smaller than the standard edition.Avro Phonetic Layout
Apart from providing traditional layouts, Avro developed a new layout which provides phonetic typing, that allows Roman transliteration to Bengali. In spite some criticism for letting typing in foreign alphabets, it acclaimed much popularity, specially among young generation. The layout is adopted by various other keyboard software including Ridmik keyboard, Borno keyboard, OpenBangla Keyboard and others. It is also used by Universal Language Selector of Wiki projects for Bengali input. It was also used in Firefox OS for Bengali input, utilizing its JavaScript implementation, along with Probhat layout.Awards and recognition
- In 2025, its inventor, Mehdi Hasan Khan and three others, got the second-highest civilian award of Bangladesh, the Ekushey Padak for inventing this software.
- Certified as a 100% clean from spyware/adware/virus on Softpedia.
- Has been added to the online solution directory of Microsoft for Indic language input.
- Avro Keyboard has been listed as useful Bengali computing resource by the Unicode Consortium.
- The Bangladesh Election Commission used Avro for internal use and found it satisfactory.
- Added as a built-in keyboard in Bengali Wikipedia.
- Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services has given the 'Special Contribution to IT Award 2011' to Avro team for Avro Keyboard Software on 4 February 2011.
Conflict with Bijoy
Beginning
On 4 April 2010, Mustafa Jabbar, the proprietor of commercial and closed-source Bijoy software and CEO of Ananda Computers, said in an article in the daily Janakantha that hackers were responsible for spreading unlicensed copies of his Bijoy on the internet. He accused UNDP of helping these hackers. He further claimed that UNDP had remarkable influence for selecting Avro for the national ID database project of the Bangladesh Election Commission.Avro developers denied all allegations, and accused Jabbar of continuous harassment in different stages and media by calling them thieves and for that their petition was ignored there. They said that the developers behind Bengali computing happened to work under threat of legal persecution and law enforcing agencies. They indicated that Jabbar complained against Avro after losing around ৳50 million business in Bangladesh Election Commission that used free Avro software instead of commercial Bijoy in the national ID database project.
Reaction
Anger and protest have become apparent in Bangla blogosphere and Bangladeshi Facebook users for this accusation that Avro is a "pirated version" of 'Bijoy' and that the Avro team have been called "hackers".The Avro team was praised for saving around 50 million Bangladeshi taka of Bangladesh Election Commission.