Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by John B on May 3, 2012 · permalink

I love this add-on! I speak English natively but I’m pursuing a long-held dream of learning Russian. I’m a touch typist, so when writing e-mail in Russian, I don’t want to switch to a true Russian keyboard. And sometimes I’m running Thunderbird from a USB stick, on a computer that doesn’t have any alternate keyboard mappings.

Enter Kyrgyz Key!

One quick click over the Kyrgyz Key logo in the status bar, and the editor in Thunderbird switches to a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard, suitable for an English speaker. Another click, and the keyboard is back to normal. I can also type a word phonetically, press a function key, and have it transliterate from Latin into Cyrillic. Last but not least, I can highlight a word or phrase and hit a key to have it translate from English to Russian, or vice-versa! Of course, all 4 keys are configurable.

This add-on meets all my criteria (and Mozilla’s as well) for a 5-star rating:
* It just works, bugs are a rarity!
* It is trivially easy to use.
* I use it ALL the time!
* I don’t know how I would get along without it.