still have questions about SignText <-> SignPuddle

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
April 15, 2006

Anne-Claude Prélaz Girod wrote:
> Stev is ther a way to go back and forth from St to SP ... use a  
> sign (or a
> few signs) already writtent in SP... load them into ST (with translate
> option...) then add more signs directly into ST and.... go back to  
> SP to
> pick up another sign.... and continue the same sentence ?

There is not a way to do that right now. But funny...the whole point  
to SignText was to encourage people to write texts without pasting  
from dictionaries so much! So you can save phrases, as well as whole  
sentences, by bookmarking portions of sentences, and then re-use that  
phrase when you want to start a new sentence that might use that  
phrase...that saves a little time...but I find creating new signs  
with dragging and dropping directly in SignText so fast that it is  
almost faster to create the new signs as you go, and forget so much  
dependancy on pasting from dictionaries...It takes time to paste from  
SignPuddle to SignText and in that time you could have written the  
whole sentence directly!

Years ago we were criticized for the fact that people pasted from  
dictionaries in SignWriter DOS...actually anyone can type directly in  
signs without pasting from a dictionary in SignWriter DOS too...we  
didn't use to have that feature in SignWriter DOS and people typed  
directly in symbols without pasting anything, but as soon as we got  
that feature built in...presto....people stopped typing and started  
pasting...

So the more you can create signs from scratch, the faster you will  
build the skill, and that will be nice not to have to paste so many  
signs all the time, which we do not do in spoken languages when we  
type...I did not paste one word of this message from a dictionary in  
English...smile...I typed it directly, letter by letter...smile...

By the way, have you tried opening two web browsers side by side  
before? Open Firefox and Internet Explorer at the same time. Make  
their windows small enough so they fit on your screen side by side.  
Use Firefox to create the SignText sentence, and use Internet  
Explorer to search for signs in SignPuddle so you know what is there  
for you if you need it...smile...

Happy Easter everyone!

Val ;-)