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Welcome to the SignPuddle Information Network. This website contains the original work of Stephen E Slevinski Jr.

SignPuddle helps SignWriting work

1 The Open Standards of SignWriting
2 Downloads
3 Read Online
4 View the Demos
5 Plan for 2010
6 Visitor Messages

The Open Standards of SignWriting

There is an emerging open standard for SignWriting that will reach an international group. A new standard will empower people throughout the world, in all countries, for all sign languages. As the groups are enabled, they will grow and their culture will continue to flourish, but in new and amazing ways.

Video is not text. The open standards of SignWriting establish sign language as text. The open standards cover the alphabet, data model, and user interface. Neither the individual sign languages, nor their respective text corpora are covered by the open standards.

I started 6 years ago with the creator of the SignWriting script: Valerie Sutton. Her 501c3 non-profit is over 30 years old. I work as an independent consultant. We have an active community of users in many countries around the world. http://www.signwriting.org/about/who/

3 years ago, Valerie and I decided to develop open standards based on our work in 3 areas: alphabet, data model, and user interface. We completed the alphabet in 2008: the International SignWriting Alphabet 2008. The ISWA 2008 is available under the Open Font License.

The data model is documented with a downloadable HTML reference guide. The data can be encoded in BSW (open standard) or UTF-8(compatible with Unicode). The user interface is illustrated in the SignWriting Image Server. The software is released under the GPL 3. The standards document is released under Creative Commons (by-sa).

Sign language is vastly different than spoken language. Instead of the sequential sounds of the voice, there is a 3 dimensional space with simultaneous action. The SignWriting script captures the essence of sign language as text. It is very easy to start reading and writing with paper.

Bringing the SignWriting script to the computer is entirely different. Sign language to text is the first step. Text to binary character data is the next. Binary SignWriting established the x-ISWA-2008 as a 2 byte character set which can be represented with 4 bytes of BSW or UTF-8 data per character.

SignWriting is a spatial writing system that combines a limited number of symbols on a 2 dimensional canvas. Each word is a cluster of symbols that are read as a single unit and represented by characters with coordinate data.

Currently, Unicode can only simulate a spatial nature with superscripts and subscripts and complicated rules for combining sequential characters.

We are encoding the script and not the specific language. SignWriting can be used for all sign languages without modification.

Our standards are used today and they are practical.

Downloads

Read Online

View the Demos

Plan for 2010

SignWriting Image Server (SWIS)

I am finishing release candidate 2 for SWIS. This will include better documentation and working UTF-8 conversions.

SignWriting MediaWiki Plugin (SWMP)

As I finish SWIS, I will also finish a second beta for the MediaWiki plugin. The SWMP will use the viewer sections of SWIS. I will remove the editors (maybe the ISWA documentation) and refactor the code according the MediaWiki coding conventions. I will use the MediaWiki SVN repository and submit the viewer. After a code review and a security review, I hope WikiMedia will host the plugin on the Incubator and the English Wikipedia. We will be using the full SWIS and SignPuddle 2 to generate the content for the viewer.

Near the middle or end of 2010 I will revisit the SWMP to add localization and work on CSS integration with SignWriting.

SignPuddle 2

My own software running on SignBank.org needs an update. The main change will be a conversion to Binary SignWriting data, rather than CSV and XML. The greatest change will be the new SignMaker and SignText from SWIS. Otherwise, the user interface will not change much. Backup and recovery will be quick and easy.

PersonalPuddle 2

The PersonalPuddle will use the latest SignPuddle 2 code. The PersonalPuddle 2 will integrate with SignPuddle Online. Mac and Windows installation. Linux directions. Includes the new SignWriting MediaWiki Incubator.

SignWriting MediaWiki Incubator

Do you want a Wikipedia or Wiktionary in SignWriting? It will take a tribe to do it. Only a well organized group from a particular language who successfully adds 300 articles to a MediaWiki installation will get to go to the next level. Administration of a MediaWiki installation can be complicated and time consuming. The SignWriting MediaWiki Plugin is incomplete, but functional. Specifically, we'll need a group to run the installation, we'll need a group to add the articles, we'll need a group of architects who know MediaWiki and SignWriting to improve the plugin.

For all of these groups to work together, they need a working server installation. I am discusssing the possibility of installing the SignWriting MediaWiki Plugin on the official WikiMedia Incubator. Any eligible sign language project may be able to start on the WikiMedia Incubator and then transition to the live production server after they have final approval.

Besides the WikiMedia Incubator, a SignWriting MediaWiki Incubator can be created with open source tools: Apache 2, PHP, GD2, MediaWiki, SWMP. Configuration and support can be tricky with a working server installation. The SignBank.org site will host several MediaWiki installations for the various sign languages.

As a fundraiser for the non-profit Center for Sutton Movement Writing, we will offer the official SignWriting MediaWiki Inclubator for Windows and Mac as a preconfigured web server already running MediaWiki with SignWriting support. The official SignWriting MediaWiki Incubator will be available for download, on CD/DVD, or USB. Linux install directions will be available.

ColumnMaker

Publishing books quickly is the goal. ColumnMaker helps move this along with column images. A revamp of ColumnMaker is planned with heavy input from Valerie Sutton.

SignMail

SignMail currently works by sending emails of embedded images from a clunky interface. It was never updated to SignPuddle 1.5. I think the easiest solution might be to just use UTF-8 in an existing email application. I will consider a plugin for Thunderbird along with updating the current embedded images method.

Web Browser Extension

Instead of making custom extensions for every Internet application, it may be easier to write an extension for FireFox that can convert UTF-8 into SignWriting using CSS rules. I may be able to adapt the current HTML and JavaScript very quickly.

Desktop Font Rendering

To get SignWriting to the desktop, we need a desktop based font rendering engine. The most promising is Graphite. While there is interest, there is little funding. It may be possible to approach Apple or Microsoft to help with the desktop.

Scalar Vector Graphics

Currently the ISWA 2008 is bitmap only. It has the uncommon quality of a 2 color font. There is a line and there is a fill. The fill matters when symbols overlap. A fill will cover the line of the symbol underneath, but not change its sort sequence. The following BSW data examples show 3 signs with 2 common fill overlaps and 1 uncommon intertwine. The 3 signs would be sorted the same based on the sort sequence data contained in the BSW.

In this example, one can overlap the other