Need Your Feedback...New SignSpelling Document Posted...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
January 19, 2003

On Jan 19, 2004, at 8:06 AM, Ingvild Roald wrote:
> Downloaded all right. Seems great. Explanations clear, examples good. I
> just have one question, to be sure I get everything right: In the
> Editor,
> one first field is used, to establish the searching group. This first
> field does not show up in the Dictionary - right?

Dear SW List, and Ingvild!
Thank you for taking the time to download, Ingvild...I guess through
experience, we will find out what works and what doesn't. The truth is,
until we have large printed dictionaries, with at least 500 signs or
more, we will never know if people can really find signs in the
dictionary quickly, sorted by the SS and the SSS! smile...

How fast can you find names in a thick telephone book? The test would
be, if the phone book was written in SignWriting, sorted by the SS and
the SSS...how fast could we find the names we are searching
for?...smile...

Now...You are right about the SignBank Editor issue...Actually that
technically could be automatically programmed so that an editor (a
person like yourself), would not have to worry about that header
field....But right now, we do not have special programming for that, so
I have been putting in the header symbol manually and it does
work...The reason I have not asked our programmer to program that is
that I don't have the funds to pay for it, at the moment...but in time
I will, and then that issue could go away...but...there is a drawback
to programming that too...

To explain...the way the SignBank Editor is programmed at the
moment...whatever symbol is placed in that first box in the Spelling
Column determines the headers in any printed dictionaries in
SignBank....Before, I had the idea that we would want very detailed
headers, so I wanted it that way...but then through experience, I found
out it was harder, if the headers were so varied...Imagine if you had
to find a word in a printed spoken-language dictionary, but instead of
sections A-Z, which is 26 headers, you had to look words up under 200
headers....200 letters of the alphabet...it would be slower...So that
is why I brought it down to 10 basic symbols as headers....but it means
that for now, we have to place that header symbol in the first box,
because whatever we place in that first box will become a header for
that sign...(see attached)...

You see, right now, whatever the BaseSymbol is for the first handshape
in the spelling, becomes the header, and we have around 200
BaseSymbols...

If we do not program anything new, then SignBank has more
flexibility...it would mean that we could choose BaseSymbol headers or
the 10 standard headers...either one...or any other combination we
choose...and the user would never know the difference...It would only
be those who enter the signs, like you, and me and maybe a few others,
that would have the burden...What would you prefer? I could use your
feedback....Please see attached diagram plus another diagram is coming
next message...Val ;-)



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