Typing in SignWriting

[Charles Butler]

My opinion on the mechanics of SW searches,

Comparing the 1-10 system SSS (Valerie's) and the Belgian (1-6), I find Valerie's (for me) more intuitive in that it is done by articulating fingers rather than how many stick out.

The 10-12 "9" hands come to mind.  One has every spread of the thumb and forefinger used for many ASL classifiers, plus the variant F, T, and 9 hands, and all the variations of the ASL "L" and "G" hands, all based on the thumb/index articulators.

With the 6 system, all the F's would go with the "3 fingers", the L & G with 2 fingers, and one would lose the distinctiveness of "which fingers articulate".

Different system, different intuition, both work, as long as all handshapes are there for searching.

Charles Butler


Stuart Thiessen <sw at PASSITONSERVICES.ORG> wrote:
Comments below ....

Stephen Slevinski wrote:
Stuart,
 H  /div> Thanks.  H  I appreciate you pointing out the disadvantages of glossing.
 H  Do you have any examples of SignWriting that demonstrate these limitations?



No problem.  H  I did a lot of glossing early on especially with people who do not know SignWriting.
 H  I found these out as I was trying to write some of these things down with glossing.
 H  I became quite dissatisfied with glossing.
The use of SignWriting is still evolving.  H  I can see the problem if people become accustomed to simplifing their language to fit an imperfect tool.
 H  They may view SignWriting as flawed, when it is actually the glossing.

Yes. It is possible.  H  That is why I think we have to figure out a way to make SignWriting the basis for composition.
 H  I like what Valerie has done with grouping symbols by using 1-10. -~ Perhaps there is a way to capitalize on that. The only input I have ever had was from one deaf person who thought it should be done like CAD programs.
 H  Other than that, I have not really sat down to analyze and brainstorm on that much yet.

 H  /div> I hope that they would become interested in SignWriting and then dissatisfied with glossing.
 H  This would lead to people willing to invest the time to learn a real tool like SignWriter.
 H  Or they may even create a tool better than SignWriter.



I agree.  H  I think two critical features that might lead to success for the next SignWriter program (Daniel, this can be version 2.0 if it is a problem, but I have some ideas so let's talk ...) is for it to be able to include some capability to include graphic images and have variable sizes of SignWriting text. Other features could come
 H  later as the program expands.

These features are needed so that literature in SignWriting can be created more easily and be able to add line drawings, illustrations, or just other graphical images that can add a nice creative touch to the document. That certainly adds some complication on the programming side, but it will streamline the production of SW documents so that it does not necessarily have to be put into Word, OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, or whatever other wordprocessors people use these days.

Those are the things I hope to see myself.  H  I have brainstormed on these things, but we need to find ways to help Daniel get the core programming complete (input, display, printing, etc.) before we can add these things.

Thanks,

Stuart
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