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<b>From:</b> SM Support Team <support@saomaicenter.org> <br><br>
<br><br>
New Year Greetings from Sao Mai Center for the Blind (SMCB)!<br>
We trust that you enjoyed wonderful moments with your loved ones during
the Christmas and New Year holidays! Wishing you a joyous, healthy, and
prosperous 2024!<br>
We are delighted to share the first news of the year 2024 – the release
of Sao Mai Braille software versionn 24.1.4. We hope you find it valuable
and would highly appreciate your help in spreading the word. Kindly find
the release announcement below, or click here to read it on our
website.<br>
Warm regards,<br>
Dang Hoai Phúc/Executive Director<br>
Sao Mai Center for the Blind<br><br>
<h1><b>Sao Mai Braille 24.1.4 Release Announcement</b></h1><br><br>
To celebrate World Braille Day on January 4th, the birthday of Louis
Braille, a blind person who invented the Braille writing system, we are
pleased to announce the release of
<a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/smb">Sao Mai Braille</a>
(SMB) software version 24.1.4. SMB is created to provide a unified
solution in the Braille conversion process for text, images, mathematics,
and music.<br><br>
The "SM Music Braille" translation software library has been
renamed to
"<a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/sm-music-braille">
SM-BungSang</a>", with our gratitude expression to commemorate the
contributions of the Teachers, Colleagues, and Friends who paved the way
from the Bung Sang Club and the Bung Sang Computer Project back to the
years before 2002. These were the solid foundation stones for the Sao Mai
Center for the Blind to be established, developed, and to have served the
visually impaired community for over 20 years.<br><br>
Some notable new features and improvements in this Sao Mai Braille
version include: full support for the process of drawing, editing and
converting images to tactile graphics; reading mathematical expressions
in Traditional Chinese and significant improvements for UEB and
Vietnamese Braille math; upgrading to the SM-BungSang 24.1 music
translation library with new features supporting advanced music scores
and complex musical notations, applying separate music settings profile
for scores; several updates to Braille translation tables for English and
Hungarian; new find and replace dialogues with 6-key Braille input; and
numerous improvements and important bug fixes.<br><br>
<a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/smb">Visit Sao Mai
Braille’s main page to download.</a><br><br>
Below is detailed information about the changes in the SMB 24.1
release.<br><br>
<h2><b>Tactile Graphics</b></h2><br><br>
Besides the function of inserting and displaying images in the print
document, now, SMB 24.1 fully supports the process of drawing, editing
and converting images into tactile graphics. SMB integrates the Sao Mai
Graphics (SMG), a tool for drawing and editing images. The
<a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/smg">SMG</a> tool can be also
downloaded, installed, and run as a standalone application.<br><br>
By default, SMB will ignore all images when converting from print to
Braille. To change relevant settings, go to the Tools menu, open the
Options dialogue, and choose the Tactile Graphics page.<br><br>
When an image is inserted directly into a Braille document or translated
into Braille from a print document, the image will be converted to black
and white.<br><br>
To insert a picture:
<ol>
<li>Open the Insert menu and select Picture, or press Alt+F10.
<li>Choose an image and add it to the document. If inserting an image
into a Braille document, a dialog box will appear to adjust brightness
and darkness.
</ol><br>
After completing the insertion, as in the print document, press Alt+Enter
on the image to open the Image Properties dialogue, allowing
customization of some basic settings and providing alternate
text.<br><br>
If the focus is in the Braille document, press Alt+Enter on the image to
open the SMG tool, allowing you to edit the image.<br><br>
The interface of the tool is fully accessible for screen reading users
and entirely intuitive for all users. Please refer to the User Guide for
more detailed instructions.<br><br>
<h2><b>Mathematics</b></h2><br><br>
<ul>
<li>Initial support of CMU - the braille code used in Spanish and
Portuguese speaking countries.
<li>UEB Braille: added auxiliary parenthesis in some cases, added new
characters for UEB, and fixed some bugs.
<li>Significant improvements to Vietnamese math and chemistry braille.
<li>Fixed bug with navigating into the base of a scripted expression that
has parenthesis.
<li>Significantly changed the way whitespace is handled. This mainly
affects braille output (spaces and "omission" detection).
<li>Improved recognition of chemistry.
<li>Added Traditional Chinese translation for speech.
<li>Improvements to Vietnamese speech.
<li>Fix Roman numeral detection.
<li>Fixed some navigation bugs when AutoZoomOut is False (not the
default).
<li>Fix whitespace bug in HTML inside of tokens.
<li>Several improvements for cleaning up poor MathML code.
</ul><br>
<h2><b>Music</b></h2><br><br>
<ul>
<li>Added an option to indicate the start and stop of a slur on the same
note. The option is in the Transcription page in Options dialogue ->
Music Braille.
<li>Added option to convert line breaks of direction text to spaces. This
will interpret multiline text into a single-line text. The option is in
the Text Direction page, in Options dialogue -> Music Braille.
<li>Supported to translate each score in a document with a different
music settings profile. This is helpful for cases like translating a
music textbook in which scores might prefer to have different formats or
translation rules. To apply, open Score info dialogue, select a score
from the Score list and choose a profile in the "Music profile"
list next to it.
<li>Added Description field in Music Braille’s Profile page in Options
dialogue. From the profile list, use arrow keys to a profile and press
Enter to select.
<li>Increased to 20 Braille characters allowed to input for the Braille
part abbreviation, staff name and instrument abbreviation in Score Info
dialogue.
<li>Part tab is selected by default when navigating in Score Info
dialogue.
<li>The breve note will be indicated by dot 45-14 connecting between two
normal whole notes. For example, C breve will be: ⠽⠘⠉⠽.
<li>Improved some rules for indicating the value signs.
<li>Fixed an issue of not correctly indicating the accidentals for the
degree and bass notes in chord symbols.
<li>Upgraded the doubling function, allowing for doubling multiple signs
at the same time.
<li>Fixed the error of indicating an unnecessary octave sign after a
single trill line.
<li>Fixed several issues of not doubling intervals and unnecessarily
re-indicating the octave sign when enabling the backward-numeral or
measure-number repeats.
<li>Upgraded the repeating function in all four modes: part-measure,
full-measure, backward-numeral, and measure-number repeats. Additionally,
the performance of backward-numeral and measure-number repeats has been
significantly improved.
<li>Supported repeating and doubling functions simultaneously. Optimized
the algorithm to save Braille cells when both repeating and doubling
cases happen.
<li>Handled the combination of multiple measure rests in all
transcription modes. Combining multiple measure rests is no longer a
feature of the full-measure repeat option. Fixed alignment bugs of
bar-over-bar format for some cases of combining measure rests.
<li>Fixed an error of missing notes when the first staff is hidden, and
tempo text is on staff 2.
</ul><br>
<h2><b>Other Changes</b></h2><br><br>
<ul>
<li>New Find and Replace dialogues: support to find next, find previous,
replace one by one and replace all. Screen readers announce the status of
results. Additionally, it supports to input text in 6-key Braille input
method with either Ascii or Unicode Braille.
<li>Added an option to automatically remove blank lines at the beginning
of the braille pages when embossing or saving as BRF, BRL, BRA, and PEF
files.
<li>Updated to LibLouis 3.28.
<li>Fixed an issue of an extra blank page when the page break character
coincides with the translation point to a new braille page.
<li>Fixed a bug that added dot 3 in the Braille window when pressing
Ctrl+S to save.
<li>In the braille window, pressing F4 will read the translation table
filename of the current content if different from the default table.
<li>The screen reader no longer reads "delete" when typing in
Vietnamese.
<li>In the Options dialog, pressing F6 will move between the left pane
for selecting configuration page and the right pane for settings of the
selected configuration page. If the right pane is divided into multiple
configuration option groups, pressing F6 will move to the groups before
switching to the left pane.
<li>In the braille window, the status bar displays additional information
indicating whether the braille code is Unicode or ASCII.
<li>Fixed an issue when translating some data tables from MS Word files.
<li>Added support for translating MS Word table of contents in the style
of SMB.
<li>Numerous improvements for translating content in the header and
footer of an MS Word document.
<li>Removed the option "as LibLouis" in the Display Braille
Code combo box in the Translation Tables page in the Options dialog.
<li>Audible notification while waiting for the program to perform
translation tasks.
<li>Fixed error when activating the Customize button in Bullets and
Numbering dialogue. Screen readers should speak hex value of the selected
bullet symbol.
<li>Announced link when navigating with up and down arrow keys.
</ul><br>
<br><br>
-- <br>
Support Team<br>
Visit our website at: <a href="https://saomaicenter.org">Sao Mai Center
for the Blind (SMCB)</a><br>
Twitter:
<a href="https://twitter.com/SaoMaiCenter">twitter.com/SaoMaiCenter</a>
<br>
Facebook:
<a href="https://facebook.com/SaoMaiCenterForTheBlind">
facebook.com/SaoMaiCenterForTheBlind</a><br>
Youtube:
<a href="https://youtube.com/@SMCenter">youtube.com/@SMCenter</a><br>
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