Preparing for SignPuddle 2

Mon Jan 18 17:13:57 UTC 2010

SignWriting List
January 18, 2010

Hello Steve and Everyone!

THANK YOU, Steve, for this message and your hard work on new software  
development.

I am now back online, following a fascinating week working with Dr.  
Erika Hoffman-Dilloway, from Oberlin College, who, as you already  
know, is a Linguistic Anthropologist using SignWriting for her  
research on Nepali Sign Language and several other research  
topics....I am preparing a summary of our week together and will post  
it in the next day or so...Thank you, Erika, for coming to visit me.  
It was a great week...

Meanwhile, Steve, has been working sooo hard behind the scenes to  
improve and expand SignWriting software. I really enjoyed reading this  
message below, Steve. Thanks for informing us of your new  
developments. After reading it, I visited SignPuddle, found a  
dictionary entry, and then clicked on the links directly under each  
dictionary entry in SignPuddle...

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List members, I suggest you try this...Go to a SignPuddle  
dictionary...find a sign...and click on the links underneath the sign  
to see Steve's new programming. Steve is developing a new way that  
SignWriting data will be encoded for the future, that will be better  
for many reasons...and SignPuddle 2.0, our new version of the software  
that is coming, will include all these new developments...Take a look  
at what you see when you click on the Analyze link for that sign in  
Binary SignWriting. Steve created a table that shows the internal  
coding of how that one sign is mapped in Binary SignWriting and UTF-8:

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So in the future, SWML will be in the past. Once Steve has finished  
all of these new developments, SignWriting will no longer be in SWML  
in SignPuddle, but will be in BSW or UTF-8 instead, which will bring  
SignWriting into our modern world into formats that might be more  
compatible with other modern software...so this is an important step  
towards spreading SignWriting throughout the internet...not just on  
our own SignPuddle site, but on other people's web sites...it will  
make it easier for other web designers and programmers to use  
SignWriting in their work...

2010 and the whole teen's decade, I predict, will be the spreading of  
SignWriting throughout the internet...

I hope to post a series of reports to the SignWriting List about  
several historic developments in SignWriting that occurred in 2009.  
Perhaps the first one will be posted tomorrow...Later these reports  
will become the official 2009 Year-End Report.

Have a wonderful day everyone, and thanks for all your messages...I  
hope you all will continue to post messages informing us of your  
projects and work with SignWriting. Your messages create an historic  
record for researchers and historians, plus the messages and  
conversations that take place, provides a place for us to learn  
together, so it truly means something when you post messages. You are  
handing us all a gift, when you post on the SignWriting List, so thank  
you for your participation on this List!

Val ;-)

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On Jan 18, 2010, at 7:17 AM, Steve Slevinski wrote:

> Hi List,
>
> In February, I'm going to start the update to SignPuddle 2.  The  
> primary change will be the switch to the SignWriting Image Server.   
> For the user interface, the new SignMaker and SignText will be most  
> apparent.
> On the back end, I'll be changing how I encode the data.  Instead of  
> XML and comma delimited data, I'll be using the open standard of  
> Binary SignWriting.  From a user's perspective, it doesn't matter  
> how the data is encoded.  From a programmer's perspective, the data  
> matters a lot.
>
> Last year, we had a nearly flawless transition from the previous  
> symbol set of the International MovementWriting Alphabet (IMWA) to  
> the latest symbol set of the International SignWriting Alphabet 2008  
> (ISWA 2008).
>
> This year, we'll have the data change to Binary SignWriting.  I've  
> already written the conversion library and it appears to be working  
> great.  There is a single problem where people were using  
> punctuation in the spelling of a sign.  Punctuation should always be  
> used by itself and always in the middle lane.  The new data format  
> and the new SignText enforce the proper use of punctuation.
>
> I'm pleased with how the conversion is working.  I've added new  
> links to SignPuddle 1.5 you can see at the bottom of a sign's  
> detail: view and analyze.  Links are provided for sign and sign  
> texts.  The data can be encoded in BSW or UTF-8.  The UTF-8 can be  
> used with Unicode, but may require 3 times as much data to send  
> online compared to BSW.
>
> The analysis page is very interesting.  It provides a readout of the  
> data.  It links every symbol to the ISWA 2008 HTML Reference Guide.   
> The analysis is not meant for reading, but for analyzing the data.
> Regards,
> -Steve
>
> SignPuddle.net
>
>
>
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