liblouis: How to Write Translation Tables
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1 2 How to Write Translation Tables
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1 For many languages there is already a translation table, so before
1 creating a new table start by looking at existing tables to modify them
1 as needed.
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1 Typically, a braille translation table consists of several parts.
1 First are header and includes, in which you write what the table is for,
1 license information and include tables you need for your table.
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1 Following this, you'll write various translation rules and lastly you
1 write special rules to handle certain situations.
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1 A translation rule is composed of at least three parts: the opcode
1 (translation command), character(s) and braille dots. An opcode is a
1 command you give to a machine or a program to perform something on your
1 behalf. In liblouis, an opcode tells it which rule to use when
1 translating characters into braille. An operand can be thought of as
1 parameters for the translation rule and is composed of two parts: the
1 character or word to be translated and the braille dots.
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1 For example, suppose you want to read the word 'world' using braille
1 dots '456', followed by the letter 'W' all the time. Then you'd write:
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1 always world 456-2456
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1 The word 'always' is an opcode which tells liblouis to always honor
1 this translation, that is to say when the word 'world' (an operand) is
1 encountered, always show braille dots '456' followed by the letter 'w'
1 ('2456').
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1 When you write any braille table for any language, we'd recommend
1 working from some sort of official standard, and have a device or a
1 program in which you can test your work.
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