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Hi List,<br>
<br>
I continue to work on SignPuddle development. Building up the
pieces one at a time and connecting them together, layer upon
layer. I've had some tremendous success with the database and with
API access. I'd like to share my latest achievements. I apologize
that the details are technical. Eventually, these details will be
covered up by easy to use graphical interfaces.<br>
<br>
Today, I release a new version of the SignWriting Icon Server. It
includes a shiny new API: application programming interface. An API
allows others to access our data with modern web technologies. I
currently only have the English/ASL dictionary loaded from
SignPuddle. I am still working on the database and I will load
additional puddles in the near future.<br>
<br>
So what can the API do? A user requests data and the API returns
the results.<br>
<br>
If you visit <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://SignPuddle.com">http://SignPuddle.com</a> you can try it yourself. The top
of the page has a rudimentary front end that allows you to access
the API.<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part1.01040000.04020001@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
The first input box allows you to search by spoken language. If we
search for "hello", we will see the following results.<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part2.02000306.08040804@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
The second input box allows you to search by sign language using
Formal SignWriting or a query string. If you have a sign encoded
with FSW that you found online, you can process that sign with the
API. Let's consider the following FSW string:
AS18701S1870aS2e734S20500M518x533S1870a489x515S18701482x490S20500508x496S2e734500x468<br>
<br>
Visualize will show the sign image.<br>
<img src="cid:part3.04040201.08020707@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
Query will search the database for similar signs.<br>
<img src="cid:part4.00060703.07000809@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
Reverse will search for spoken language equivalents for similar
signs.<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part5.01060404.06000100@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
The query strings are very powerful, but esoteric. A graphical
interface will help, but for now, here is a quick example. Using
the ISWA HTML Reference ( <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://signbank.org/iswa">http://signbank.org/iswa</a> ), we determine
that we are interested in signs with a particular hand shape (S115)
and the single contact (S205). These keys need a specific fill and
rotation, such as S115 with fill 0 and rotation 0 for key S11500 or
we can leave the fill and rotation unspecified such as S115uu.<br>
<img src="cid:part6.00000505.05030506@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
The first query string we'll use is QS11500S20500<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part7.05000208.06070207@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
The second query string will leave the fill and rotation unspecified
for the hand shape with query string QS115uuS20500<br>
<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part8.08090000.09030403@signpuddle.net" alt=""><br>
<br>
So just a quick taste of things to come. Thanks for hanging in
there with the technical details. Query strings are detailed in
Modern SignWriting, section 9:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://signpuddle.net/wiki/index.php/MSW:Regular_Storage_Form#9.B._Query_String">http://signpuddle.net/wiki/index.php/MSW:Regular_Storage_Form#9.B._Query_String</a><br>
<br>
Questions or comments are welcome.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
∼Steve
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