SignPuddle Update

[Stephen E Slevinski Jr]

Hi list,

I hope everyone's work is going well. I've been busy building an 
infrastructure and creating a path forward. So far we have a solid base 
started. A few more components and we will be prepared for explosive 
growth. I apologize for all of the frustrations and old infrastructure. 
I look forward to reintroducing the keyboard later this year.


Amsterdam Hackathon
==============
I'm excited to announce that I will be attending the Wikimedia Hackathon 
in Amsterdam this year: May 24th - 26th. Lots of information to learn 
and discuss.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Hackathon_2013


I have 2 main goals. The primary goal is to enable sign language 
projects on Incubator using the new SignWriting MediaWiki Plugin. We'll 
be able to move the ASL Wikipedia Project to a fully supported platform 
and we'll be able to start other sign language Wikimedia project.
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/ase


There are currently 4 sign language requests to Wikimedia that are 
waiting on the technology.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
* Wiktionary American Sign Language
* Wikipedia American Sign Language
* Wikipedia British Sign Language
* Wikipedia Finnish Sign Language

If anyone would like to show support for my trip to the Hackathon, 
please consider making a new request for a sign language project, either 
a Wikipedia or Wiktionary.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Handbook_%28requesters%29#Making_a_new_request


My secondary goal is to find a better way to implement SignWriting in 
MediaWiki software. In particular, I look forward to hacking the 
VisualEditor:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor:Welcome

I leave in a week and a half. Below is a report for the current 
infrastructure.

SignWriting Text Infrastructure
==================
The current infrastructure includes 4 parts.
* draft-slevinski-signwriting-text specifications
* TrueType Font
* SignWriting Icon Server
* SignWriting Thin Viewer


draft-slevinski-signwriting-text-01
------------------------------
A stable specification for the internet community. Yesterday, I uploaded 
a new version of the standards document. Both the ASCII and the Unicode 
strings have been stable since Jan 12, 2012. I will continue to improve 
the document until it is published as a Request For Comments (RFC), but 
the character encoding is considered final and will not change in this 
document. The SignPuddle Standard for SignWriting Text is stable and 
ready to deploy.
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-slevinski-signwriting-text-01.html


TrueType Font
-------------
Unfortunately, the TrueType Font is still experimental. Several issues 
involved. Once the font is perfected, we will no longer need the 
SignWriting Icon Server to create the SVG images.


SignWriting Icon Server
-------------------
Monday, I published a release candidate for the SignWriting Icon Server 
on GitHub. Each installation generates a unique copy of the SignWriting 
Thin Viewer for use as a site script or bookmark.

The main public server is available on Wikimedia Labs:
http://swis.wmflabs.org

A backup server is available on SignBank.org:
http://signbank.org/swis

Anyone is free to install their own SignWriting Icon Server on a 
webserver or localhost with PHP, GD, and SQLite.


SignWriting Thin Viewer
--------------------
A small stand alone JavaScript function (1.3k) uses simple HTML and CSS 
to fully supports the grammar of SignWriting. The thin viewer relies on 
the availability of a SignWriting Icon Server to generate the SVG images.

A much larger JavaScript library (44k) is available that creates the 
Unicode and wraps it in the appropriate HTML and CSS. This larger script 
relies on the availability of a working TrueType Font. As of yet, the 
only TrueType Font is experimental.
http://signpuddle.com/index2.html


Regards,
∼Steve