Dan's SWML suggestion about pasting sign sentences from dictionaries

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 11, 2003

On Friday, July 11, 2003, at 04:13 AM, Angus B. Grieve-Smith wrote:
> I think one of the reasons for this is that the typing process in
> SignWriter is confusing and unintuitive.  I'm not sure how I'd change
> this, but it'd be nice to try and get some usability/ergonomics people
> to
> review it.


That is only your opinion, Angus, that the typing system in SignWriter
is counter-intuitive. I love to type with SignWriter and I do it
quickly and ergonomically and directly, without using the dictionary
(except when I am editing and changing the dictionary entries). The
problem is that such technique takes training and a good knowledge of
the logic behind the typing system we devised, so such a test, as you
mention above, would only work if we had some trained SignWriter
typists to test...that is really important...plus the testers would
have to know SignWriting and some signs, to be able to test the typing
too...

Maybe someday other people can re-design a way to type differently in
SignWriting. I hope they do!! I would love it, in fact, because I
personally want a way to type SignWriting rather than
pasting...whatever the typing method...

The problem is this...no matter what method of typing, to learn to
type, no matter what the language, takes training...Stefan is the only
one I know of, who is really holding training workshops in typing with
SignWriter...I suppose I could hold typing workshops in my home and I
could invite the teachers specifically for typing training...I would be
glad to do that. I have never done that, and Cecilia was left without
any training.  But no matter what, we will always have SignWriter users
who have downloaded the program free on the internet who will not have
that training...so rather than learn to type, they paste...We would do
that in English too, if we had the opportunity, since lots of people do
not know how to type English either...

SignWriter DOS and SignWriter Java are "Typing-Pasting" programs.
SW-Edit is a Pasting program...
Perhaps SW-Edit will work best for Dan Parvaz' idea with dictionaries,
since SW-Edit is a Pasting program?

Val ;-)