Dan's SWML suggestion about pasting sign sentences from dictionaries

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 10, 2003

On Thursday, July 10, 2003, at 05:39 PM, Dan Parvaz wrote:
> I'm thinking of this purely in terms of SWML. When files gets saved in
> native SW format, it should be "flattened," i.e. have all dependencies
> resolved and have the actual sign, not the link, in the file.
> Or not :-)
> -Dan


Thanks Dan, for this response...It looks like you have all of the
questions answered...until you said "or not" at the end! Now I am not
sure I understand it....smile...How would this be good for the typist?
What would programming this feature do for the user?

I have a feeling I don't understand it, so let me try to explain it,
and you can correct me...Is this true?... the SWML will hold
information in it, that states the dictionary entry, even though the
sign has been changed after it was taken from the dictionary? So two
different signs, that end up looking quite different from each other,
could still be sourced from the same entry in the dictionary?

I guess I am thinking about how I personally type with SignWriter.
Because I know the program so well, I know what the entries are in the
dictionary, and whenever I know that I want a sign that is "similar" to
another sign in the dictionary, but is not exactly the same, I will
find that "similar" sign, paste it into my document, change the similar
sign to another sign, and then re-paste it back into the dictionary to
save it as a new sign....Meanwhile it is now a part of my document
too...So I am a little lost as to how this would work...would I need to
throw it out of my document and paste the new sign from the dictionary,
so that the SWML would have the correct link?

Val ;-)