[liblouis-liblouisxml] Tables mess
- From: James Teh <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: liblouis/liblouisxml mailing list <liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:34:37 +1000
Hi all,
As of liblouis 1.4.0, the slightly convoluted situation with tables
became even more convoluted with the introduction of the converted
BRLTTY text tables. There are now multiple tables for several languages
and many do not include comments indicating the difference between them.
Aside from making it difficult to know which table to use, this makes it
extremely difficult for products using liblouis to provide a
user-friendly list of tables. For example, in NVDA, we provide a list of
tables, but rather than using file names, we provide human readable
names; e.g. Unified English Braille Code grade 2 for UEBC-g2.ctb.
Several issues need to be addressed:
* While I realise that the filename extensions are arbitrary, as I
understand it, .ctb is supposed to be for contracted tables and .utb for
uncontracted. Many tables do not follow this.
* There is no way to distinguish text tables; i.e. tables that just map
from character to dot pattern, also known as grade 0. BRLTTY calls these
text tables (.ttb).
* All of the converted BRLTTY text tables are named .ctb, which is
incorrect, as they are not contracted.
* Many of the converted BRLTTY text tables already had equivalents in
liblouis. These should either be removed or should supercede the old tables.
* There is no consistent method used to describe tables in comments.
Some tables have a comment like:
# liblouis: Unified English Braille Grade 2 table
This is a good start. Many tables don't have this at all or use a
different pattern. The converted BRLTTY tables are a particularly
problematic example.
Better still would be the following:
# liblouis table: Unified English Braille Code grade 2
This would allow programmatic extraction of the table descriptions for
use in third party software as described above.
* There are duplicates such as fi1.ctb and fi2.ctb, and it-it-g1.utb and
it-it-g1.utb2. The latter is especially confusing - what is utb2? If
there is no reason for these duplicate,s they should be removed. The
difficulty is in determining which is the correct table.
First, I'd appreciate thoughts on all of the above.
If this is to be solved, we are probably going to need help from users
who use all of the available languages, as they will have a better idea
of which tables should be kept and which should be removed.
--
James Teh
Email/MSN Messenger/Jabber: jamie@xxxxxxxxxxx
Web site: http://www.jantrid.net/
For a description of the software and to download it go to
http://www.jjb-software.com
Other related posts:
