[liblouis-liblouisxml] Thoughts onn a new liblouis*
- From: "John J. Boyer" <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 08:26:52 -0500
Before we think of writing code we should design algorithms that meet
all the requirements that we know if. One use of liblouis and
liblouisutdml that has not been menntioned is for Braille production by
Braille publishing houses. Several places in Europe are already using it
this way, and APH here in the U.S. will be using the libraries in
BrailleBlaster. This use requires proper indication of emphasis and even
other kinds of type, such as colored type, which is frequently used now.
Another consideration is the license and copyright. We need to free
ourselves of the LGPL. This probably means that we can't use any of the
existing code. Whether it applies to the concepts behind that code I
don't know. It would be good to get the opinion of someone with legal
experience. The license should be a permissive one, like Apache 2.0.
Although the software will be open source, it should be copyrighted by
an organization that can take action if someone violates the license.
For liblouis, something like the current opcodes for entering simple
contraction rules will give the best performance. For more complex
situations some form of scripting language seems necessary. This was
first introduced in an assembly-like language used in context and
multipass rules. It needs to be extended to handle even more complex
situations, such as insertion of Braille indicators for emphasis. Such
indicators must be inserted in more than one place. Moreover, it must be
able to query the typeform parameter. I doubt that any scripting
language now in use can meet those requiremennts.
liblouisutdml handles interpretation of xml and formatting. We will need
something like the present semantic-action files and configuration
files.
Finally, work on the existing code must continue. Plans for new
incarnations must not distract from it.
John
--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities
For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com
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