Dave, I am assuming that brltty would pass a pointer to a position in a string. The Grade 2 translation routine would then translate until it reached the end of the string or until it had enough to fill the Braille display. If it found that the last word would not fit on the display it would backtrack to the beginning of that word and just leave a few blanks at the end of the display. In any case, it would pass back a pointer to the place in the input string where translation should resume, or perhaps an integer count of the number of characters in the input string that it translated. If the pointer into the input string indicating where the translation was to begin happened to be in the middle of a word the translator would just process the rest of the word, whatever that might turn out to be, instead of trying to find the beginning of the word and probably producing some nasty bugs. I think that cut and paste should simply not be attempted if the Grade 2 translation is on. Brltty should refuse to carry it out and should display a message asking the user to turn grade 2 translation off. John Computers to Help People, Inc. http://www.chpi.org 825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Mielke" <dave@mielke.cc> To: <blinux-list@redhat.com> Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 11:44 Subject: Re: brltty and simultaneous grade 2 translation > [quoted lines by John J. Boyer on November 26, 2001, at 08:49] > > Hi: > > >The Grade 2 translation should be on-the-fly and should affect only as much > >information as will fit on the display. > > BRLTTY, of course, would have no way of knowing how much translated data will > fit within the braille window. It, therefore, would have to pass in the whole > rest of the line starting at the position where the left end of the braille > window is. > > What about the case where the left end of the braille window starts in the > middle of a contraction? This shouldn't happen when already in grade 2 mode, > but might happen when switching into grade 2 mode. I guess it should just leave > that little bit at the beginning uncontracted. > > There's also the possibility that the end of what'll fit within the braille > window won't fit. Should it show the beginning of the contraction/symbol, or > leave the end of the window blank? > > >Translating the whole screen at once > >would probably be a bad idea. > > I agree, even if simply because it may be a lot of useless work since the > screen might change by the time te reader gets there. > > >One way the Grade 2 translator could work > >would be to pass it the place where the translation is to begin. It will > >then translate as much as will fit on the display and pass back the place > >where it ended. > > I think it'd have to be screen unaware. I'd like to be able to pass in a > character string, which would end up being the rest of the current line from > the place where the braille window starts. To make cut&paste work correctly, > I'd want back the offset into the input string of each character in the output > string. > > >The translation tables should be provided in a form that is easily edited, > >so that users can make changes and write tables for new languages. A table > >compiler would probably be advisable to preprocess the tables before they > >are actually used in translation. > > Yes, that'd be a good way to design it. Hopefully the table would be general > enough to support languages other than English. > > >A keystroke on the Braille display can toggle between Grade 2 and the > >present display mode. > > Agreed. > > >The table can be "compiled" when BRLTTY starts, or even recompiled > >on-the-fly with a special keystroke. > > Bewtter yet might be to check the timestamp on the table, and recompile if it > changes. > > >We can do better than Jaws, which doesn't have user-accessible tables. > > Of course! > > -- > Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the > Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario | Word of God. Please contact me > EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada K2A 1H7 | if you're concerned about Hell. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Blinux-list@redhat.com > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list >