[sw-l] Flemish Sign Language development continues...

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
March 18, 2005

Hello Bart, Steven and Flemish team members...
It is really great to hear from you again...It is terrific news that
you are continuing to work on your Flemish Sign Language Dictionary
software!! Your video dictionary is really beautiful. It has been very
valuable to us....For those who have never visited, go to this web page
to see what we are talking about...

Flemish Sign Language Online Dictionary
http://gebaren.ugent.be/

and....

American Sign Language Dictionary in the same software....
http://www.adrem.ua.ac.be/~aertsbraem/ASL/alfabet.php


Bart Braem wrote:
> Dear Valerie and list,
> It's been quite a long time since I and Steven posted here so give us
> the time
> to get used to the feeling again... We are currently finishing our
> final
> master year in CS so it's been very busy and it will become worse when
> all
> our projects have to be finished.

Oh. I understand. Our list is sooo busy and I can imagine it is too
many messages....If you cannot stand the awful graphic-garbage that
comes inside the Digest form of our list, you could move over to
no-post, which means you can post your messages to the List, but you
will not receive any messages in your email box...but you can read the
messages in our archives...if you want to do that, go to:

Change your settings on SW List
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/cgi-bin/majordomo

and change your settings to no-post....


> On the other hand, we'd like to inform you of how our dictionary is
> doing and
> how the development continues (because it does!). Currently we are
> working
> with some minor optimalisations, management of over 7000 signs can be
> tough.
> One major event which might interest you is that we are going to open
> source
> our software.

Wonderful!! That is a true gift....we are all fortunate....


> Why? Because that way you can enjoy our effort and reuse it when
> appropiate.

You are so kind! There are some SignSpellings (grin) that need to be
updated...Does this mean we can make SignWriting changes to the lexicon
online?...or maybe the teachers at the school could be able to do that
with a password?...no matter what, this is really exciting news...


> When? Within the next month hopefully, we're still working out
> licensing
> issues.

Wow. This is really fast....take your time...

> How? You'd probably just will have to mail us and we'll guide you to
> the
> source. Unfortunately we won't be able to fully support it like we did
> at our
> working example - because that takes too much costly time - but we
> will help
> if possible.

That is fine, and very generous...thank you!

When you are ready, tell me, and I will mail you, as you request
above...Maybe Stephen Slevinksi, who is a programmer who works with me,
could also walk through the sources with me, since he will know more
about source code...but we are aware of the huge job you have done for
the world...many thanks for this....

>
> If you have any comments or questions we'll try to answer them as soon
> as
> possible!
>
> Bart & Steven
> --
> Woordenboek Vlaamse Gebarentaal
> http://gebaren.ugent.be

No rush to answer this...but are these the features your software
offers?...

1. Can convert any SignWriter DOS dictionary from SSS-1995 to SSS-1999
to SSS-2002...is that right?
2. Can convert any SignWriter DOS dictionary into PNGs?
3. Can create a web-version of the vocabulary in the SignWriter DOS
dictionary fairly automatically?...
4. Has a place for video
5. Can search by words
6. Can search by handshape and contact symbols

I bet I am wrong on a number of these, so correct me...

Thanks for sharing with us - and good luck with your Masters degree
work...

Val ;-)