Query on Sign Documents

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
August 29, 2005

Charles Butler wrote:
> Can one yet make a sign document on the Web, and save it as a true  
> document, so that it can be searched for signs, like a word  
> processor?  Right now, we are still limited to signs with word-to- 
> word translation.

Hello Charles and Everyone!
Thanks for this question. Someday I hope there will be software that  
is specifically designed to give us full documents while working with  
SignPuddle dictionaries on the web...I know that Steve has this in a  
To-Do list ..Right now, with the features we alerady have in  
SignPuddle 1.0, we can do documents that are searchable by equivalent  
word-glosses...Here are three ways to do that...

1. Use SignText, which cannot access signs already entered into other  
SignPuddles, but if you are willing to create all of the signs from  
scratch, you can save your whole document in SWML and I believe it is  
then searchable...is that right Steve?

2. Use the Translate program, or the SignMail program, and save the  
word-glosses you used to create the document in a separate text-file,  
so that later you can search on those specific word-glosses by  
referring to your text-file...

3. Or later this Fall, private SignPuddles, in the new SignPuddle  
2.0, will be available for anyone who wishes to sign-up for the  
private service:

SignPuddle Web Services
http://www.signwriting.org/catalog/member/mem004.html

You will be able to upload video with each sign entry, plus these new  
SignPuddle 2.0 web areas will be more searchable...by sign-symbols as  
well as by more sophisticated word-searches. The new SignPuddles will  
also support Unicode for spoken languages...

Val ;-)