[Fwd: Re: [g-a-devel] [PATCH] gnopernicus letting BRLTTY translate dots]]

[Dana Ormenisan <do baum ro>]

Hello,

Thank you for your intention to contribute  to gnopernicus. We apologize
for the delay of this reply.

We reviewed your patch and we believe that making Gnopernicus work
better with BrlTTY is a good idea but the consequences above the
architecture of braille module are really serious.   

Our braille module has a layered architecture, including three layers:
an device dependent layer (DD - files like alvabrl.c,h, baumbrl.c,h
etc.), an device independent layer (DI - braille.c,h ) and an XML layer
(brlxml.c,h).

Applying this patch, our architecture model is seriously affected. The
DD layer becomes more complicated and the DI layer purpose is almost 
eliminate in this way. In the current implementation, DD layer have to
know only to 'put the dots' . So this patch acts like a hack. Basically,
our model will be changed, and the clarity will be lost. Do we really
want all these changes at this moment? 

We need to discuss this problem, to see if all these changes are really
needed.

Regards,
Dana Ormenisan


> Hi,
> 
> Mario Lang wrote a gnopernicus braille driver using BRLTTY's BrlAPI
> some time ago. This brings the possibility to use its big lot of
> braille drivers and smoothly switch between linux consoles. But
> gnopernicus doesn't have many translation tables, while BRLTTY have
> plenty of them, including very special ones (VisioBraille table for
> instance). Moreover, BRLTTY users will most probably prefer just keeping
> the same braille style & cursor settings without having to reconfigure
> it.
> 
> Here is a patch which makes gnopernicus let BRLTTY translate text into
> dots: if the "None" translation table is selected (ie no translation
> table is loaded), xml's plain text is recorded as such, while xml's
> raw dots are still stored the usual way. The BRLTTY driver then gives
> both to BRLTTY, which mixes them up appropriately.
> 
> Since braille style & cursor settings will be handled by BRLTTY,
> selecting the "None" translation will also disable corresponding braille
> settings buttons, for not confusing the user.
> 
> Regards,
> Samuel, for S&S