[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: Table of human readable tables.

  • From: "Arend Arends" <mada73bg@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 08:47:34 +0200

I suggest that you replace the word human by English and add at least an entry for a local name since many tables are non-English. Also the names should be unique, so they can be used to select a specific table.


Arend Arends

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- From: Greg Kearney
Sent: Wednesday, June 4, 2014 7:26 AM
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: Table of human readable tables.

OK I see your point. However I would like to suggest the header idea. This should be the first line in every file as a comment but with a set form I suggest the following: #ISO 639-2 code#grade number#human readable name#table use#optional ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code

So the one for UEB English grade 2 would look like this

#eng#2#English UEB Contracted#literary#au

The words literary, computer, math, chess, symbols, etc. in the fourth field tell the user to nature of the table.

If we stick to this form any program would be able to tell by simply reading the first line of the file the language, grade and human readable table name and as option the country of use.

As the first letter of the header is a number sign (#) this will be treated by the table as a comment meaning we can add this header to all the tables without any impact on the current tables, their names or their current use.

Should there be other items in the header as well?

Greg Kearney
21908 Almaden Av.
Cupertino, CA 95014
UNITED STATES
Email: gkearney@xxxxxxxxx

On Jun 3, 2014, at 5:44 PM, James Teh <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi.

This idea is not new. I and others have discussed this at length in the past. There are a few problems off the top of my head:
1. Renaming files will break any existing users of liblouis.
2. The concepts associated with multiple codes (grades, contracted/uncontracted, computer braille, etc.) aren't standard across all codes. For example, in English, there is computer braille, grade 1 (uncontracted) and grade 2 (contracted). However, as I understand it, some codes have more than two "grades" and grade 1 and 2 aren't necessarily uncontracted and contracted, respectively. English has two computer braille tables (6 dot and 8 dot). In order for such standardisation to be useful, it needs to take all of this into account. 3. A table probably needs to specify exactly what languages and countries it is used in. For example, UEB isn't truly unified because it isn't used in all English speaking countries. I imagine there are some country specific codes that are actually used in other countries.

Jamie

On 4/06/2014 5:29 AM, Greg Kearney wrote:
Would everyone look over this list of human readable table name please. If I have left something out that should be in there please make a comment to me or to the document itself. I only included tables that would be used to do translations and not support files.

I would add that it might be a good idea to harmonize the file name at some point. I realize that in many cases one file calls another but it would seem to be a good idea to consider. At the same time a standard header could be included to be able to reach the human readable names, grade number, language and so on something like this:

# eng; 2; English UEB Contracted

The first column is the ISO 639-2 Code (http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php) second column is the grade (0,1,2,3) of braille the third column is the human readable name.In this way a computer program could look at the first line of all the tables, .ctb files, and work out list of all of them for a particular language, grade of braille or build a menu of human readable names.

Files would be renamed as follows: eng-ueb-g1.ctb

All translation tables will start with the ISO 639-2 Code followed by either a code identifier in the case of unified language codes as are found in English and French or the national 2 letter code (http://www.spoonfork.org/isocodes.html) for example Swedish would be swe-sv-g1.ctb this would address a situation such as exists in German with two Braille code systems one for Germany itself and one used in Switzerland they would be ger-de-g1.ctb and ger-ch-g1.ctb

just a thought.


Commonwealth Braille & Talking Book Cooperative
Greg Kearney, General Manager
605 Robson Street, Suite 850
Vancouver BC V6B 5J3
CANADA
Email: info@xxxxxxxxx

U.S. Address
21908 Almaden Av.
Cupertino, CA 95014
UNITED STATES
Email: gkearney@xxxxxxxxx



For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com


--
James Teh
Executive Director, NV Access Limited
Ph +61 7 3149 3306
www.nvaccess.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess
Twitter: @NVAccess
SIP: jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com

For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com

For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com

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