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Hi SignWriting List,<br>
<br>
2017 has been a great year for Sutton SignWriting and we're not done
yet.<br>
<br>
Today, I received excellent news regarding a grant to fund the Two-D
font for SignWriting.<br>
*
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/slevinski/ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/slevinski/ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting</a><br>
<br>
--------------------------------<b><br>
This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.</b>
<p>The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary
assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence
review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers
favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further
investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.</p>
<p>--------------------------------<br>
*<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:Project/slevinski/ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting#Round_2_2017_Aggregated_feedback_from_the_committee_for_ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:Project/slevinski/ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting#Round_2_2017_Aggregated_feedback_from_the_committee_for_ASL_Wikipedia_2-D_Font_Development_for_SignWriting</a></p>
<p>The grant will be announced on Dec 14th, so fingers crossed.</p>
<p>Regardless if the grant is approved, it is a good sign that "a
majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this
proposal".</p>
<p>I'm very happy with Formal SignWriting in ASCII (FSW). Stable
since 2012, it will always be available and useful.<br>
</p>
<p>Going forward, we're ready to move to a new character set:
SignWriting in Unicode (SWU). First published in July 2017, SWU
is the final specification for naming signs. It is 100% FSW
compatible with easy bi-directional conversions.<br>
</p>
<p>It is already an improvement over FSW without the Two-D font.
While SWU still looks like data, it is better than FSW. FSW
doesn't look like sign language at all. Consider this sign
written in both formats.<br>
</p>
<p><img src="cid:part1.F5C371C6.5928525D@signpuddle.net" alt=""></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>The above image is from SignMaker 2017 with the FSW view option
enabled. By default, SignMaker 2017 will only display the SWU at
a larger size.<br>
</p>
<p><img src="cid:part2.301BF4AC.53BD05EA@signpuddle.net" alt=""></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>SWU is meant to be used in edit fields, applications, databases,
and URLs. The One-D font is available for SWU and the text looks
like the examples above. It still requires SVG for proper
viewing. When the Two-D font is available, the SWU characters
will not look like a visual string, but the signs will look like
signs.</p>
<p>Before the end of 2017, I plan to release an update of the Sutton
SignWriting project and SignMaker 2017 with full SWU support.
2018 will be a year of transition to the new standard of SWU.
2019 will be a year of growth with SWU and the Two-D font.</p>
<p>These two changes are disruptive, but very beneficial.<br>
1) Character update - FSW to SWU<br>
2) Viewer update - SVG to Two-D font</p>
<p>Better tools and software are on the way. Thanks for your
support and patience.<br>
</p>
<p>Regards,<br>
-Steve<br>
</p>
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________________________________________________
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Valerie Sutton
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