Actually when you get used to it, it is quite fast and simple. In your case you have to use Shift in order to make conjunct, which also includes an extra keystroke. The reason for "f", I assume, is that Devanāgarī assumes the vowel "a" after a consonant, unless there is a virāma; and "f" has that function. So, if you really want a virāma -- you type the consonant and "f" and give a space.

On Nov 13, 2013, at 9:20 AM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm slightly appalled by what I'm hearing about typing "f" in between every conjuncted letter. That must make typing a terrible pain!

All our modern operating systems have built-in stuff for making conjuncts automatically by just typing the letters one after another (as in romanization).* I don't understand why MS Win and OS/X users are doing this other, laborious thing. Am I missing something obvious?

When I type Devanagari, I type kRSNa and get कृष्ण, kArtsnyam for कार्त्स्न्यम् . It's the same whatever program I'm using, because the keyboard/language stuff is handled by the operating system, not each individual program. As far as I know, anyhow. It's handled by software on my system, Ubuntu Linux, called Ibus and m17n (which comes with Devanagari and IAST romanization already pre-defined).

Dominik

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