[sw-l] Handwriting and idiosyncratic SW

[Sandy Fleming]

Hi Charles,

In her manual about block printing, Val suggests just using one or two
strokes for a cross-hatch fill, though for hands oriented sideways you have
to split the hand down the middle before filling, so that's two strokes at
least, and maybe this kind of fill isn't very noticeable either.

In the same document, however, she suggests writing endless rows of symbols
until you're good at it - boring!

But these are two birds that can be killed with one stone! Yes, write
endless rows, but as you're doing so, experiment with stylistic variations.

My attached gif shows a solution that might work well for filling in a
single stroke. Instead of using shading, imagine you have a ring shape
tatooed on the back of your hand. Simply draw this ring instead of the
fill - all kinds of orientations at a single stroke!

Of course this defies convention, but I don't see it as stepping outside of
the SW system in any way. It's more like inventing a new fun font  :)

Disclaimer: I only just thought of this - I haven't actually tried it with
all kinds of handshapes!

Personally, I'm a bit of a doodler and I like doing a quick scribbled fill,
but different styles may suit different people better, and maybe we should
get used to the idea of "designer fonts" in SW!

Sandy

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu]On Behalf Of Charles Butler
Sent: 04 October 2004 18:01
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: [sw-l] Handwriting and idiosyncratic SW


Hi Sandy, Val, and lots of other people.

I would agree that Sandy is looking at how to make SW more flexible as a
handwriting system.  It's all well and good if you are typing, but if you
are writing, sometimes making multiple dots, or crosshatchings, or lots of
other things which work marvelously if you are just pointing and clicking
get VERY tedious to make clear in a SW handwriting system that still
maintains the integrity of the SW system.

We need to start handwriting more and scanning that into our discussions so
we get an idea of what "local conventions" are doing.  Imagine what
happened, thousands of years ago, when the A, which had been written with
the points up (it was a picture of a cow), flipped over.  We haven't seen it
that way since the Phoenicians, but who knows what to expect.
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