SignPoster Tutorial 1: Introduction

About SignPoster

SignPoster is a temporary name we are using for posting demonstrations of the software in order to receive feedback on the keying system and related issues. This feedback is important to help us provide the kind of interface users will be happy with, but it doesn't necessarily perform any useful functions. Once we have a useful SignWriting editor we'll change the name.

Tutorial

Make sure you have the software downloaded. If not, you can download it now.

Work your way through the following steps to see all the keying features provided by the demonstration.

Note: this tutorial uses the 26 letter keyboard, so start by selecting "Keyboards" from the menu bar and selecting the "ASL 26" option.

  1. Click on the program icon to run either the executable binary or the program source.



  2. You should see a window open with a little stick man of sorts in it. This is not part of the sign you will be typing, it's just a background to guide you with positioning the hands and suchlike.



  3. Now type your first handshape by pressing the "r" key on the keyboard (make sure the Caps Lock key is off or it won't work). You now see the "crossed fingers" handshape displayed in the right hand position. This is the handshape used to spell the letter "r" in ASL fingerspelling. This is nothing to do with typing fingerspelling: we're just using fingerspelling as an easy way to remember which key produces which handshape.



  4. You may want to make the symbols bigger. Press the Control-i key once or twice to zoom in. If you make it too large you can zoom out again using the Control-o key.



  5. Now press the "]" key on the keyboard. Then press the "[" key. Press the "[" key again. As you see, the square bracket keys control the orientation or "fill" of the handshape. You will notice that the position of the fingers changes according to orientation, but for some handshapes this doesn't work correctly. We only noticed this recently (we had made an incorrect assumption about the structure of the Sutton Symbol Sequence), and will fix it in later releases.



  6. Now try pressing the "[" and "]" keys again a few times, but this time with the "Control" key held down. As you see, the "Control" key gives you finer control over the orientation.



  7. Now press the "'" key (the prime or apostrophe key) a few times. Then press the "#" (the hash hey) a few times. These keys rotate the handshape counterclockwise and clockwise. Now try pressing them a few times with the "Control" key held down. Again, the "Control" key gives you finer control.



  8. Try pressing the arrow keys a few times and watch how the handshape moves. Also try this with the control key held down and watch the fine movement.



  9. Press the "Return" key. This makes the right hand empty and fills the left hand on the background guide. This means that you are now typing the left hand.



  10. Press the "e" key on the keyboard a few times. You'll see that it only gives the fingerspelled handshape on every second keypress. On the other keypresses it gives you the spread hand. This is a way of cramming a large number of handshapes onto a keyboard with only 26 letters. Select the spread hand and press the "/" key. You will see that the fingers detach: the "/" moves the hand into the floor plane. Press the "e" key again to select the "e" hand. You will see that the hand is still in the floor plane. If you wish, you can press the "/" key again to move it back into the wall plane,



  11. Press the "Enter" key twice, to move back to the right hand via the head. Use the arrow keys to move the right hand until it's over the top of the left hand. Press the "\" key a few times and see what happens. The "\" key is used to change the position of the hands to put the one below on top and vice versa.



  12. Now try pressing the "Enter" key while holding down the "Control" key. You see that the hands go grey. Press the "c" key, say, to type a new handshape. Press the "Enter" key to change to the left hand. Press "p" to type yet another handshape for the left hand. All that's happening here is that you're typing a new syllable. Press "Enter" while holding down "Control" again. This keypress switches between syllables. The syllable you are typing is in black, while the syllables you're not typing are greyed. At the moment only two syllables are available, but in future you will be able to type as many as you want.



  13. Press the "<" key (remember to use the "Shift" key). This shifts the body left. Similarly, the ">" key shifts the body right. Again, you can hold down "Control" for finer control.



  14. In the real editing software, the space bar will move the background down so that you can start typing the next sign. The greyed syllables in the sign will be changed to black. But at the moment in this demonstration we're only offering one sign, so this doesn't happen!


  15. Now press "Control-s". This opens a dialogue to allow you to save the file, if you wish. It saves it in a compact ASCII format. At the moment this stores everything you typed, even your mistakes, but in future it will store the SignWriting in a consistent format. If you want to reload your saved file, press "Control-l". You can also save the file as a Postscript file by pressing "Control-p". In future there will of course be more save and print options.


  16. Although a single keypress is enough to give you any of 26 different handshapes (and often fingerspelling can be used as a memory aid for these), the rest of the handshapes in the language need two keypresses to type them. You can play around with the letter keys on the keyboard to see this, but for serious typing you will need to refer to the User Guide for a table of keypresses and handshapes. With enough practice we hope you will be able to type fluently without the reference chart!


Next: you should go on to Tutorial 2. This tutorial gives an in-depth demonstration of the 36-key keyboard, which we think is more likely to be the keyboard we will eventually adopt. But let us know which one you prefer!