IMWA: Handshape Construction and Sequencing Rules

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 4, 2004

Bart Braem wrote:
> One other thing we would like to ask: please make all symbols turn in
> the same
> direction, so all counter-clockwise for example. Currently some
> symbols do
> turn the other way round and that's pretty irritating when
> programming: if
> you want to display a mirrored or rotated symbol you always need to
> check the
> category. When you just specify one rotation programmers can always be
> confident that when the format reads "turn 45 degrees" it will always
> be the
> same direction.

Hello Bart and Everyone!
As you know, there are 8 categories in the SSS-2004:

Hand
Movement
Face
Head
Upper-Body
Full-Body
Space
Punctuation

Each category has different issues, regarding flops and rotations. You
are right that the first two categories, for hands and movement arrows,
can be consistent when it comes to direction of rotations. I agree with
you on this. Way back in 1986, when I entered the first symbols into
the first symbol editor, for SignWriter on the Apple 2e, I thought that
maybe the left movement symbols should rotate the opposite direction
first, since that is what happens in real-life. But it became confusing
for computer programmers, so I agree that all movement symbols and all
hands should rotate counter-clockwise first and clockswise second...I
already changed a lot of them but I will check again now, before
reloading SymbolBank on the web -

Thanks for that suggestion...

Regarding the other categories, like faces...let's not discuss that
right now...that is really complex because faces don't have the same
kind of rotations...long story for another message  Val ;-)