IMWA: Handshape Construction and Sequencing Rules

[Bart Braem]

Op woensdag 2 juni 2004 20:18, schreef Valerie Sutton:
> I believe this was a communication problem with terminology...When I
> said a Symbol Number, I was referring to the third three-digit number
> in this string:
>
> 01-01-001-01-01-01
>
> I call that a Symbol Number...please see attached diagram...I am glad
> you like our categories and groups...Those have not changed...

That's very good, so no more symbol number 260 right?

> Do I understand that you like the category, group, symbol, variation,
> fill and rotation system we are using?...Just want to be sure I
> understand you...smile...

We don't really like the rotation system, let me try to explain you why:
for the moment the rotation number is meaningless (it's impossible to say how
much degrees it is rotated, most of the times 45 degrees but sometimes 15 or
30 or...) and we experienced problems because of that already in our sign
display online
perhaps more important: when someone needs a different rotation degree you
will experience the same problem as when new symbols are added to the older
symbolsets: either they get a number somewhere at the back or you have to
change all rotation numbers
We just think that when putting symbols in categories to avoid renumbering
every new release, you should also think of a new rotation system to avoid
renumbering too.

One other comments is to use category and group names instead of numbers: you
have created a wonderful system to distinguish different signs, let's use
that then :-)

To conclude we suggest using eg.

hand-index finger-1-1-1-45

or using a directory structure:
hand\index finger\1-1-1-45

so the root of you directorytree is SSS2004, that has a subdirectory hand and
that last one contains a subdirectory finger containing the file 1-1-1-45
You see, it perfectly represents you tree structure :-)
Take a good look at the numbers: they don't have unnecessary zero's: computers
are perfectly able to understand where the number stops.

We know some of our ideas seem to be very radical, but we have gone trough the
whole process of doing a conversion and displaying sings and I can tell you:
let's do it right now. We had so many small issues that slowed us down which
can all be solved now and that just seems so great.

Let's hope this clears things out
Bart & Steven
--
Woordenboek Vlaamse Gebarentaal
http://gebaren.ugent.be