PROGRAMMERS: Typing SignWriting in Vertical Columns...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
June 18, 2004

Stephen Slevinski wrote:
> Do you have a keyboard layout idea for implementing vertical columns
> with
> the 3 swim lanes?  Has the swim lanes idea been included in the new
> version
> of the SWML?

Ha! I like calling them swim lanes, although it sounds like we are
drowing in confusion - smile...I always called them Lanes, thinking of
a highway ;-)
Anyway, no...of course I cannot speak for Antonio Carlos or anyone else
working with SWML...but I can hardly imagine that anyone programmed
vertical columns into SWML with Lanes...although I had this design
ready to go for the java programmers years ago, they never finished the
program, and so sadly none of it ever got programmed before...I am soo
happy to see that Daniel Noelpp, in Switzerland, is programming a way
to have vertical columns in SignWriter Tiger, but it is truly my fault
that I have not shared this with everyone...people write vertically all
the time, but it never made it into software in the right way yet...so
that is the very reason why I am explaining it now...everyone just
assumed that placing signs in vertical columns was like
ColumnMaker...just centering the signs down a long column, not
realizing there were different Lanes...

So I will continue this discussion until we all understand it fully...

> I thought I would play a bit with the PUDL site and try to implement
> gloss
> translation with swim lanes.  My dictionary still doesn't center the
> head in
> the middle of the swim lanes, but my next dictionary will.

I know that you can do it...it is just a matter of time for the methods
to become standardized. I am used to typing SignWriting with
keystrokes...I am not sure how your web-oriented, mouse-oriented
program would do it...but the idea of placing that information in SWML
is very valuable...


> An easy way to tell gloss where to put the sign is to use the greater
> or
> less than symbols.  So if a sign belongs in the middle, use the gloss
> name.
> If the sign belongs to the left, use the "<" symbol.  If the sign
> belongs to
> the right, use the ">" symbols.

Well yes...that is similar. The reason I didn't use Control-Arrow Keys
in SignWriter Java was because in SignWriter DOS we have the keystrokes
Control-Arrow keys to mean moving an entire sign to the right or left
just a little...but maybe they could mean moving from Lane to
Lane...why not? ;-)


> So attached is the translation of "there_2 <my <dog there >your >dog."
>
> The new code doesn't work for fingerspelling.  You can try it if you're
> interested at: www.pudl.info/dictionary/vcode.php

I am half asleep - it is only 1:00am but tomorrow is another day, as
they say, and I look forward to looking at your work then! We need more
facial expressions with the sentences produced on the PUDL site...I am
so impressed that ou can produce ASl sentences as much as you are
already doing, without a typing input device, so you are making
strides...but the hardest will be the facial expressions, because they
change all the time, depending on the grammar and placement of the sign
in the sentence, and those facial expressions are the Center Anchors
for the columns...

Goodnight!

Val ;-)