[nfbcs] new open source Braille translation software for theblind

[qubit]

Is wintrans the underpinnings of winbraille? Winbraille is now obsolete, 
however I still use it as I have an index embosser.  It runs off tables and 
templates.
I haven't see the source and don't know who has it, but every so often I hit 
a bug and wish I had the source to tweak.
happy hacking.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>; <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] new open source Braille translation software for 
theblind


Joe,

The fact that I got excited when I saw the subject and then disappointed 
when I didn't find an announcement of an
open source translation package already available probably says it all. 
While I understand very much the complexity of
braille translation and why translators cost so much, it is hard to swallow 
spending what one spends for a braill printer
only to find one usually has to spend another $500 to use it.  There are 
exceptions of course.

As a person somewhat familiar with the development and evolution of 
NFBTRANS, I recognize that we need something
more than NFBTRANS offers.  Be careful, though, not to under-estimate the 
difficulty of developing a good translator.
You would not believe the number of strange things we had to debug and 
correct in NFBTRANS over the years.  Some
problems don't make themselve apparent until someone runs into a particular 
situation that uncovers the problem.
Translating a long document can really give a translator a workout and 
expose shortcomings in a way that doesn't
happen with other software.  A translator really has to be solid for people 
to count on it.

If a better program than NFBTRANS becomes available, I would be the first to 
loudly applaud.  This is an old program
that has already served people well.  Please consider two things.  First, I 
think there are some good possibilities for
improving NFBTRANS without re-inventing translation.  There is a lot of room 
for a more complete Windows interface
than has been developed with WINTRANS.  WINTRANS is an extremely good effort 
but development has stopped.  In
addition, I think that the possibility of adding the ability to get 
formatting from Word documents would add a lot of
usefulness to NFBTRANS.  These would both be projects that could be 
manageable without having to start from
scratch.  NFBTRANS has already been compiled under LINUX and UNIX, so the 
possibility of adding some interfaces
there exists as well.

As stated above, NFBTRANS is old code.  If you are really up to doing a 
translator from scratch, please consider looking
at the NFBTRANS source code, not as a model, but to see what kinds of 
problems that have been encountered and
solved.  Also, look at the NFBTRANS table to get a clear feeling of how many 
different things have to be considered to
do good translation.  Maybe you have already done something like this, but I 
can only say that I am a programmer and
was still surprised at all of the different types of rules that had to be 
developed to do good grade II translation.

The fact that you are interested is exciting.  Please let us know what you 
decide to do and if any of us can be of help.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:45:15 -0600, Joseph C. Lininger wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA256

>Hi all,
>Please forgive the cross-post, but I wanted to reach the students since
>it's the group of the NFB that I know the largest number of, as well as
>the computer science people in hopes of eliciting a response from them.
>I will warn you now that this message is a little long, but I'd
>appreciate if as many of you as possible read it and provide me with
>your feedback. Whether or not I attempt this project will be directly
>influenced by how much feedback I get on the idea.

>I've been kicking an idea around in my head for a while and I want to
>know if there would be a large enough group that would find it of use.
>I'm thinking of possibly writing a completely extensable, flexable, and
>open source Braille translation package. I know about the nfbtrans
>software already, and it's a good peace of software, all be it a little
>dated at this stage of the game. What I'm thinking is a translation
>package that takes a different aproach. The major features would be as
>follows.

>* Modular design, allowing for Braille formats to be easily supported.
>Grade 1, grade 2, Nemith, and even foreign language Braille should not
>require complete rewrites of the software. All that need happen for a
>new format to be supported is for someone to write a module for it.
>Depending on what my research reveals, I might even be able to provide a
>generic module that allows for simple one to one print to braille
>mappings for some of the simpler Braille codes.

>* Modular design allows for a wide variety of Braille printers to be
>supported. At first, all that will be supported is to print a document
>directly to the serial or parallel port, but in the future support for
>the advanced features found on individual printers will be supported.

>* Command line interface at first, with the eventual goal of having a
>fully featured editor with Braille translation such as that which you
>find in commertial translation packages.

>* Software is able to be used directly, such as by a student or
>professional wanting to translate a document into Braille, or as a back
>end solution, being called by some other program to perform translation.

>* Licensed under the GPL or similar license. This allows people to use
>the software, free of charge, as well as to modify it. It is insane that
>translation software is so expensive.

>* High quality. Performance, features, etc. should be as good or better
>than that available in the commertial products.

>So, here are my questions to you all.

>1. Is there still a need for such software, or have devices like the
>braille note made it something that is no longer strictly necessary?

>2. If such software existed, would you use it personally or do you know
>anyone who would?

>I'll look forward to hearing back from all of you!
>- --
>Those of you who think they know everything are very annoying to those
>of us who actually do.
>Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm at pcdesk.net>
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