Thanks, John. That Windows distribution did not seem to include translation tables, so should I use those in the tables subdirectory of the latest liblouis distribution? I tried that and it seemed to work except for an unexpected amount of garbage characters when I back translated a file as compared to NFBTrans. I may not be using the optimum techniques, however, so would appreciate any tips.
Specifically, I downloaded the free .brf file containing the Declaration of Independence and Constitution from the National Braille Press page at
http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/publications/downloads.htmlSince it has an abbreviated file name that is hard to remember, I renamed it to founding.brf. I then back translated with the following command:
lou_translate.exe -b en-us-g2.ctb <founding.brf >founding.txtIf you want to compare output with NFBTrans, use Control+Shift+O in EdSharp. I did some fine tuning of parameters in the call to NFBTrans via a configuration file, but it's been long enough that I do not recall what.
By the way, the Windows binaries get unarchived into a 2.0 subdirectory whereas the latest liblouis seems to be 1.8. Can you clarify?
JamalOn Fri, 30 Jul 2010, John J. Boyer wrote:
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:32:13 -0500 From: John J. Boyer <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans There is a version of liblouis and liblouisxml for Windows. Look on the downloads page of http://www.abilitiessoft.com It is not the most recent version, but it will do most things. It does not depend on Cygwin. It was compiled using a combination of MinGW and msys. There was a problem linking the most recent version, which we hope to overcome. The new project, BrailleBlaster, will work on Windows, Mac and Linux. John On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 01:35:13PM -0400, Jamal Mazrui wrote:Yes, the Unicode and multi-language support would be advantages over NFBTrans. For English users, those features may not matter. Based on a Google search on liblouis windows compiling on Windows has not been successful so far, even with cygwin, which I would not want the executable to depend on. Jamal On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Ken Perry wrote:Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:54:49 -0400 From: Ken Perry <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans It will compile on windows they are trying to get someone to make a windows release of it. It would compile quite easy if someone wanted to do it. Much easier Than NFBtrans. In fact it probably has a lot more good stuff than NFZBtrans. For example uni code support and multiple language support. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 11:39 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans liblouis is a good project, but in the latest distribution from http://code.google.com/p/liblouis/ I could not find any executable that runs on Windows. The documentation mentions a Windows DLL, but that is not included in the distribution either, nor is there documentation about how to use it. In general, the project appears to be Linux-oriented. Also, there are Python bindings, but they do not include support for the back translation part of the liblouis API (going from a .brf string to plain text). For these reasons, I used NFBTrans as a converter in EdSharp, and am now hoping that I can get a version that runs on Win64 (by compiling it as 32-bit rather than 16-bit). If any C programmers can use the liblouis source code to create a 32-bit Windows executable, including back translation support, please go for it and share your results. Such a translator would probably be better than NFBTrans, but since the latter already existed as a 16-bit Windows executable, I thought it may be easier for voluntary C programmers to start from there. Jamal On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Ken Perry wrote:Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:03:45 -0400 From: Ken Perry <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans Is there a reason your going back to an old bit of source when Liblouis is maintained so well? Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jamal Mazrui Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 7:22 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: Arthur Pirika Subject: Re: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans Cool -- thanks for working on this. Hopefully, the result can be a better NFBTrans, not just a 32-bit compatible one. Jamal On 7/30/2010 7:02 AM, Arthur Pirika wrote:I've also taken a look at this code, and while it does seem pretty portable, the only part that looked fishy at first was an asm file, but all it does is pc speaker sound output. However, the code's a wash with #defines, #ifdef DOS's and unixes, djgpp's, etc. Also, for instance, it sets some hard limits on path lengths. 127 if it's dos, and 1024 if it's unix. Btw, I'm looking into this with open watcom, using it's win32 compilers. Just some thoughts, Arthur. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Joseph Lee" <joseph.lee22590@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 10:38 PM Subject: Re: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTransThanks. Please share any notes from your efforts. If you run into a problem and report it here, someone else may be able to help. Jamal On 7/29/2010 10:32 AM, Joseph Lee wrote:Hi, I'll try it via VS2008 (I have 32-bit machine). Cheers, Joseph -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of JamalMazruiSent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 4:33 AM To: programmingblind Subject: Seeking someone to compile 32-bit version of NFBTrans NFBTrans is a free, open source braille translator available at http://www.nfb.org/nfb/nfbtrans.asp The last version released is a 16-bit process, so will not run on64-bitWindows. I am looking for a C programmer who can compile a 32-bit version using the included source code. The distribution does include make files for Unix-like systems, so my hope is that the code iswrittenin a portable enough manner that a skilled C programmer would be abletorecompile it for platforms of today without much difficulty. Can anyone do this via MinGW, or if not, with another C compiler? I would gladly post an updated distribution for anyone to use freely. As an option in the Open Other Format command, Control+Shift+O, EdSharp uses the existing NFBTrans for back translation of .brf or .brl files into plain text (e.g., books downloaded from BookShare or NLS). This does not work on Win64, however. Jamal __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.441 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3035 - Release Date:07/28/1017:38:00 __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind-- John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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