ፊደል Keyboard

A smart Amharic (Ge'ez) IME for the browser — 100% on-device.

React-safe input · trace typing · 5-row on-screen keyboard · Ge'ez numerals · emoji & flags

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ፊደል Keyboard turns a Latin keyboard into a full Ge'ez input method. It runs entirely inside the browser as a Manifest V3 extension: no account, no server, no telemetry. Everything you type, everything it learns, and the dictionary it ships with stay on your machine.

Highlights

Full Ge'ez transliteration	37 consonant families, 7 vowel orders, labiovelars and ዋ-compounds
Extended ⇧ layer	28 further keys — ቐ ዸ ዀ, the 4 labiovelars, and the 21 fused ዋ-compounds
5-tab on-screen keyboard	⌨ EN · ሀግዕዝ · ሳድስ · ሰሌዳ · emoji, with drag, snap-to-edge and resize
Word prediction	958-word ranked dictionary with bigram chaining, learned on-device
Emoji & flags	158 word mappings (124 Ge'ez + 34 English), plus flags for 72 countries
Clipboard history	Every copy/cut you make, searchable and insertable
Snippets	Your own saved phrases, one keystroke to expand
Per-site control	Enable everywhere, everywhere except a list, or only on a list
React-safe	Dispatches native input events — works in editors that ignore synthetic ones
Cleans up after itself	Survives extension reloads/uninstalls without leaving a dead keyboard

Install

From source (development)

1. Clone or download this repository.
2. Open chrome://extensions in a Chromium-based browser.
3. Turn on Developer mode (top right).
4. Click Load unpacked and select this folder.
5. Reload any already-open tab — content scripts only run on newly loaded pages.

Requirements

• A Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera) with Manifest V3 support.
• The extension requests <all_urls> because an IME has to be present on whatever page you are typing into. You can narrow this to specific sites from the popup.

Using it

Writing Ge'ez text

Type Latin letters and they transliterate to Ge'ez as you go.

selam          →  ሰላም
ityop'ya       →  ኢትዮጵያ
kwa            →  ኰ          (labiovelar, see the ⇧ layer below)
lwa            →  ሏ          (ዋ-compound)

Each syllable ends in a vowel, and the vowel you type selects the order of the consonant:

Vowel	Order		Vowel	Order
e	1st — ሀ		ie / ee	5th — ሄ
u	2nd — ሁ		(no vowel)	6th — ህ
i	3rd — ሂ		o	7th — ሆ
a	4th — ሃ

So k + a gives ካ, because a is the fourth order of k. A bare a on its own is the exception: it is the syllable አ, not the sixth order.

ie and ee on their own both give ኤ.

To change the order of a syllable you have already placed, tap its key on the on-screen keyboard — the strip underneath fills with every order, and you press the matching number to switch (1ኰ 2ኲ 3ኳ 4ኴ 5ኵ).

Consonant families

Key	Order 1–3	Order 4–7
h	ሀ ሁ ሂ	ሃ ሄ ህ ሆ
l	ለ ሉ ሊ	ላ ሌ ል ሎ
hh	ሐ ሑ ሒ	ሓ ሔ ሕ ሖ
m	መ ሙ ሚ	ማ ሜ ም ሞ
ss	ሠ ሡ ሢ	ሣ ሤ ሥ ሦ
r	ረ ሩ ሪ	ራ ሬ ር ሮ
s	ሰ ሱ ሲ	ሳ ሴ ስ ሶ
sh	ሸ ሹ ሺ	ሻ ሼ ሽ ሾ
q	ቀ ቁ ቂ	ቃ ቄ ቅ ቆ
b	በ ቡ ቢ	ባ ቤ ብ ቦ
v	ቨ ቩ ቪ	ቫ ቬ ቭ ቮ
t	ተ ቱ ቲ	ታ ቴ ት ቶ
ch	ቸ ቹ ቺ	ቻ ቼ ች ቾ
x	ኀ ኁ ኂ	ኃ ኄ ኅ ኆ
n	ነ ኑ ኒ	ና ኔ ን ኖ
ny	ኘ ኙ ኚ	ኛ ኜ ኝ ኞ
a	አ ኡ ኢ	ኣ ኤ እ ኦ
aa	ዐ ዑ ዒ	ዓ ዔ ዕ ዖ
k	ከ ኩ ኪ	ካ ኬ ክ ኮ
kh	ኸ ኹ ኺ	ኻ ኼ ኽ ኾ
w	ወ ዉ ዊ	ዋ ዌ ው ዎ
z	ዘ ዙ ዚ	ዛ ዜ ዝ ዞ
zh	ዠ ዡ ዢ	ዣ ዤ ዥ ዦ
y	የ ዩ ዪ	ያ ዬ ይ ዮ
d	ደ ዱ ዲ	ዳ ዴ ድ ዶ
j	ጀ ጁ ጂ	ጃ ጄ ጅ ጆ
g	ገ ጉ ጊ	ጋ ጌ ግ ጎ
gn	ጘ ጙ ጚ	ጛ ጜ ጝ ጞ
t'	ጠ ጡ ጢ	ጣ ጤ ጥ ጦ
ch'	ጨ ጩ ጪ	ጫ ጬ ጭ ጮ
p'	ጰ ጱ ጲ	ጳ ጴ ጵ ጶ
ts	ጸ ጹ ጺ	ጻ ጼ ጽ ጾ
ts'	ፀ ፁ ፂ	ፃ ፄ ፅ ፆ
f	ፈ ፉ ፊ	ፋ ፌ ፍ ፎ
p	ፐ ፑ ፒ	ፓ ፔ ፕ ፖ
qh	ቐ ቑ ቒ	ቓ ቔ ቕ ቖ
dh	ዸ ዹ ዺ	ዻ ዼ ዽ ዾ

The extended ⇧ layer

Not every series is reachable from plain Latin letters. The ⇧ key (on the on-screen keyboard, or the extended-shift strip) reveals the 28 remaining series. It cycles off → once → locked — tap twice to keep the layer up while you pick.

The labiovelars have five orders, not seven:

Key	Series
qʷ	ቈ ቊ ቋ ቌ ቍ
kʷ	ኰ ኲ ኳ ኴ ኵ
xʷ	ኈ ኊ ኋ ኌ ኍ
gʷ	ጐ ጒ ጓ ጔ ጕ

and the ዋ-compounds are single fused glyphs:

Key	Glyph	Key	Glyph	Key	Glyph
lʷ	ሏ	hhʷ	ሗ	mʷ	ሟ
ssʷ	ሧ	rʷ	ሯ	sʷ	ሷ
shʷ	ሿ	bʷ	ቧ	vʷ	ቯ
tʷ	ቷ	chʷ	ቿ	nʷ	ኗ
nyʷ	ኟ	zʷ	ዟ	zhʷ	ዧ
jʷ	ጇ	t'ʷ	ጧ	ch'ʷ	ጯ
tsʷ	ጿ	fʷ	ፏ	pʷ	ፗ

The ዀ series (ዀ ዁ ዂ ዃ ዄ ዅ ዆) sits in the same layer as khw so it can never collide with the kh + w labiovelar path.

The on-screen keyboard

Press Ctrl+Shift+K, or click the ⌨ button, to show it.

Tab	What it holds
⌨ EN	Your QWERTY keys, each mapped to the Ge'ez family it produces
ሀግዕዝ	All 37 families, each key showing its 1st-order glyph
ሳድስ	The same families laid out for 6th-order reading
ሰሌዳ	The classic ሀ–ፐ grid — one row per order, for learners
😊	Emoji and flags by category, with a recents list

Features

• Word prediction — a ranked 958-word dictionary with bigram chaining, shown as a strip under the keyboard. Turn on Learn my typing and it adapts to the words you actually use, stored on-device and synced through your browser profile.
• Emoji that follows the text — finish a word and any matching emoji join the candidates in the strip; tap one to insert it. 158 words are mapped (124 in Ge'ez, 34 in English), including flags for 72 countries. Inserted emoji are kept in a recents list on the 😊 tab.
• Trace typing — hold a finger on the on-screen keyboard and it draws the path you traced across the keys, so you can see which series you hit.
• Clipboard history — every copy and cut is captured locally, with a preview, ready to re-insert.
• Snippets — save phrases you retype often and expand them by name.
• Key sound & haptics — an optional click per keystroke, plus vibration where supported.
• Theme — auto (follows the system), light, or dark. The keyboard is a translucent "glass" panel that sits over the page.
• Per-site control — run everywhere, everywhere except a list of sites, or only on a list. The toolbar icon shows a badge when it is inactive on a page.
• Canvas & closed-shadow detection — tells you plainly when a field cannot be typed into, instead of silently dropping your input.

Privacy

ፊደል Keyboard makes no network requests. There is no analytics code, no account, and no remote endpoint.

• The dictionary is a file inside the extension, loaded locally.
• Clipboard history, learned words and snippets live in chrome.storage.
• Settings sync through your browser's own signed-in profile, not through us.

The extension does need <all_urls> and storage — an IME has to be injected into the page you are typing on, and that is the only way to work. The per-site switch lets you keep it switched off where you do not want it.

The full policy, including a table of exactly what is stored where, lives in privacy.html and is linked from the extension's popup.

How it works

A few decisions worth knowing before you change the code:

The keyboard lives in a closed shadow root. A <div id="fidle-host"> is attached to the page with attachShadow({ mode: "closed" }). Page CSS cannot reach the keyboard and the keyboard cannot be styled by the host page, which is what keeps it from breaking on sites with aggressive global styles.

Input is inserted the way a real keystroke would. React and several other frameworks keep their own copy of an input's value and ignore anything that changes it behind their back. So instead of assigning .value, the extension edits the text with setRangeText (falling back to execCommand("insertText")) and then fires the real beforeinput / input sequence. In contenteditable regions it goes through CompositionEvent instead. This is why it works in React apps and plain textareas alike, and why the caret does not jump.

There is a removal watchdog. Reloading or uninstalling an extension does not reload the pages it was on, so the closed shadow root would survive with dead handlers. The content script beats a heartbeat attribute once a second, and a watchdog running in the page's world deletes the host once the beats stop — within about six seconds, and immediately when you return to a hidden tab. The watchdog is injected twice over: inline, and again through chrome.scripting in the MAIN world for sites with a strict CSP that blocks the inline version.

Teardown is explicit. AMKUI.destroy() and AMKContent.selfDestruct() remove the host, every listener, every timer, the AudioContext, and the globals — and hand the keyboard back cleanly enough to be rebuilt on the same page.

Development

# syntax-check every script the extension ships
for f in background.js content/*.js popup/*.js data/*.js; do
  node --check "$f" || echo "FAILED: $f"
done

# validate the manifest and dictionary
node -e "JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync('manifest.json'))" && echo "manifest ok"
node -e "const d=require('./data/dictionary.json'); \
  console.log('dictionary', Object.keys(d.words).length, 'words')"

Then load the folder through chrome://extensions → Load unpacked and reload an open tab.

There is a jsdom-based test suite (258 assertions across 9 suites) covering transliteration, the ⇧ layer, prediction, the watchdog, and teardown. It lives outside the repository at the moment; moving it into a tests/ folder is on the roadmap.

Known limitations

• Chromium-based browsers only — the extension uses chrome.scripting and a Manifest V3 service worker, and has not been tested on Firefox.
• Fields drawn on a <canvas> cannot receive typed text. The extension detects this and says so rather than failing quietly.
• Elements that keep a closed shadow root are unreachable from any content script. This is a browser security boundary, not something the extension can work around; it is detected and reported.
• The dictionary is intentionally small (958 words) to keep the package light. It is designed to be extended — see data/dictionary.json.

Roadmap

• Add the test suite to the repository under tests/
• Icons for store submission, and set homepage_url to the hosted policy
• Larger dictionary, and a way for users to add their own words
• Firefox / Manifest V3 compatibility

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. A few things that will make yours easy to merge:

• Do not reorder the content scripts in manifest.json. They depend on load order.
• Keep the two watchdog copies in sync. background.js mirrors AMK_WATCHDOG_SRC in content/ui.js; if they drift, some pages will keep a dead keyboard forever. There is a test that guards this.
• Run the tests before opening a pull request. They are not in the repository yet, so ask if you need them moved into tests/.
• Match the existing comment style: explain why something is done, not what the next line obviously does.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

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Made with care for the Ethiopic script · ፊደል Keyboard