Belgium: Handshape symbols used for searching...

[Steven Aerts]

> 1. I cannot get the contact stars to appear on the stick figure's
> body...What am I doing wrong? I find the handshape I want. I then click
> on the hand of the stick figure. I then choose a contact star, and that
> takes me back to the search page...but no star appears on the stick
> figure. I then push the Search button, and it seems to find all the
> signs with that handshape and contact star...but the stick figure
> itself never shows the contact stars like your diagram did...
This is probably a browser caching problem.
I have altered the code a bit, does it work by now?
I know you are using a netscape browser but are you able to tell me the exact
version?

> 2. Grouping by numbers of fingers is fine, and I like that, but which
> handshapes belong under which category is an interesting question and I
> would place them differently based on years of SSS development...I know
> you have already made two changes and thanks for that...but before you
> do any extra work, let me show you what I am talking about in its
> entirety, so you can think through what you want to do...I know how
> other SignWriting users think...at least they have let me know over the
> years, and I have made many changes myself, thanks to their feedback...
Yes we know, but we were looking for a intuitive ordering.  One where also a
Signwriting novice would find his sign quickly.
But as you have seen the grouping can be changed very rapidly.  And I am sure
this we will discuss this with our colleagues in Ghent on our next meeting.
(As you know we are better in programming then in Signwriting)

> 3. Thank you for giving the signs more spacing when they are listed
> (see attached diagram). That is great! Is there any way to make the
> line for the box grey, or light blue, or better yet, invisible? I know
> you need the box for programming reasons, but the person who is using
> the database doesn't need to see it. Imagine if you were searching for
> Dutch words, and each Dutch word came back with a box around it...It
> would be harder to read the words...and harder to place them into
> sentences with a box around each word!
I changed it to our lightblue.  As with the hand-grouping, these are the
things we like to change because they are easy to change.

> 4. I am having trouble copying the signs to my computer desktop. If I
> choose download it ends up a .php file, and that seems to be unreadable
> by most graphics programs. How does a person best copy the signs to
> their desktop, using the mouse right-click?...
Yeah, I know this is a bit buggy at the moment.
In some browsers (opera) you can drag the image to your desktop.
On others (IE, some int the netscape family) you can right click and then
choose "save image as".
On others (Konqueror, safari) nothing works yet.
This has something to do with our image generating code (all the signs are
paintend on-the-fly when requested).  I hope we can make it work for all
browsers.

I hope this resolves a few of your questions,

        Steven