SignBank & FileMaker

[Valerie Sutton]

On Tuesday, January 14, 2003, at 09:14 PM, Ronald Dettloff wrote:
>  We purchased the File Maker Program. How does it help with
> SignWriting?  I
> do not understand the use. Can I incorporated my dictionary into the
> SignBank or do I need to rewrite everything. I was doing fine with the
> DOS.
> Please teach me how to use SignBank. I have the instruction that came
> with
> the download. I just don't see how I can make sign writing files
> quickly?



SignWriting List
January 15, 2002

Dear SignWriting List, and Ron!
Many thanks for this message. I am glad to know you have FileMaker. I
assure you, you will use it later, as the SignBank database grows. So
you have not wasted your money...

If you are doing fine with SignWriter DOS - of course keep using it! No
one is telling anyone to stop using SignWriter DOS - I use it everyday
too...it will always continue to be important to us...

SignWriter DOS cannot sort dictionaries by SignSymbolSequence...so the
two programs provide two very different services...What are the
differences?

1. SignWriter - typing program plus dictionaries that sort by the
English alphabet
(cannot sort by Sign-Symbol-Sequence)

2. SignBank - sorts dictionaries by Sign-Symbol-Sequence (plus
searching by symbols, and video, animation, and illustrations)

Someday SignBank and SignWriter will be one program, but right now they
are two, and we have no choice but to use both right now.

Let's imagine, Ron, that we had 10,000 signs in SignBank right now. If
we did, you would have a wonderful database to search, print and
sort...But it has nothing to do with typing - the typing has to be done
in SignWriter.

So at this moment in time, we have an empty SignBank waiting to be
filled, and we cannot automatically transfer the signs from DOS to
SignBank. So there is nothing "fast" about data entry in SignBank...but
once the signs are in there, we will have a wonderful tool for printing
dictionaries and doing fancy linguistic searches...

So I am happy to teach you how to add signs to SignBank. My goal is to
add a lot of signs this year so we have a big database. As I add them,
I will show you how I did it...and if nothing more, you will enjoy the
database once it is filled with signs...

So please be patient - I have a lot of pressure on me right now in my
personal life - I will try to get to data entry and lessons just as
soon as possible -

Val ;-)