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ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 9:51 pm
by Charlie
Updates
2020-06-23pm: ASL Browsing: Added "Spelling - Random Person Name"
2020-05-30pm: ASL Testing: Added "Digits: Find the Matching Sign"
2020-05-28pm: ASL Testing: Added "Alphabet: Find the Matching Sign"
2020-05-23pm:
  • Bug fix: Fixed issue causing Start Menu items to disappear after opening any "About" window
  • "About" menu items: added "CJ's ASL.sb", which displays this thread of discussion (as a handy-dandy change log)
2020-05-19pm: Rejigged the Start menu items a little again (yeah, I'm a "tweaker"); added browsers for digits 0-9 in ASL, a browser for digits sorted, and a browser for digits shuffled; switched the alphabet images to smaller versions (allowing reduction in size of windows, making it easier to have multiple open windows on the desktop)
2020-05-19am: Rejigged the Start menu items a little, made the dedicated ASL Alphabet Browser code generic/general enough to handle various (to be determined) browsing scenarios, with "proof of concept" ability to handle ASL Alphabet Browsing (Sorted) and ASL Alphabet Browsing (shuffled)
2020-05-16: First useful functionality: ASL Alphabet Browser

G'day all,

With ASL.sb, I have multiple goals:
  • I'm slowly trying to learn American Sign Language, so might as well simultaneously build some applications to help me out
  • Being a huge fan of SpiderBasic, ASL.sb makes for a nice and practical project to learn SpiderBasic
  • I am also simultaneously designing/developing RAD.sb, a rapid application development framework for SpiderBasic which I am using to create ASL.sb. (First discussions about RAD.sb in this thread.)
Latest Screenshot: (Alternatively: Link to image)
Image

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Mon May 18, 2020 8:08 am
by Fred
That's a nice app ! Congrats

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Mon May 18, 2020 3:24 pm
by Charlie
Merci, Fred!

Slow and steady endeavour as I simultaneously enhance RAD.sb (and document RAD.sb) and add more functionality/features to ASL.sb.

Cheers !

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 3:30 am
by Charlie
It just dawned on me today that the "ASL Alphabet Browser" window can be used generically to browse any kind of signs list.

So I altered the code such that, depending on the menu item chosen, the generic "ASL Browser" window, unbeknownst to a user, handles all scenarios (one stream of code for one window and one set of gadgets) yet looks like different windows.

Bonus: no-fuss-no-muss consistent user interface for browsing whatever.
Super-Bonus: makes for so much quicker testing, because testing involves the same code, albeit slightly tweaked for each new scenario.
Related Bonus: no code duplication!


Here's a future bonus: I can use the exact same window for multiple-choice-type find-the-ASL-sign-that-matches-"this" quiz applications.


Side-note: I've done some pretty fancy-footwork to allow multiple open instances of a window. Waiting a bit to document that because (1) I do want to make sure the approach is solid/robust and (2) I have to figure out how to explain it without getting into intertwingulitis.

Cheers !

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 6:22 am
by Fred
That's a lot of bonuses ! :)

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Tue May 19, 2020 3:11 pm
by Charlie
Fred wrote:That's a lot of bonuses ! :)
That goes along with a philosophy I adopted a long time ago: happiness depends on the things one counts.

Some may look at a cup as half full, others as half empty. Me, I keep the thing topped up! :D

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 4:14 am
by Charlie
As I slowly plug away at ASL.sb, I'm also slowly plugging away at RAD.sb and, at a crawl, trying to figure out how to document RAD.sb

For the giggles, I decided to do a little side-by-side compare of GUI "Hello World" à la standard SpiderBasic versus à la RAD.sb. Much more code involved with RAD.sb.

My challenge will be to show how that extra code is more than made up for by all the work done by RAD.sb behind the scenes. Woohoo?

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 10:07 pm
by Charlie
  • Bug fix: Fixed issue causing Start Menu items to disappear after opening any "About" window
  • "About" menu items: added "CJ's ASL.sb", which displays this thread of discussion (as a handy-dandy change log)

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 3:04 am
by Charlie
ASL Testing: Added "Alphabet: Find the Matching Sign"

Nothing fancy. A random letter is picked from the testing pool and displayed.

The testing cycle starts.

Find the matching ASL representation of the letter (next and or previous buttons) and click on the "Click Here to Identify a Match" button when you've found what you think is the matching ASL representation for the letter.

If it isn't a match, the mistakes counter goes up by one, and the letter is returned to the testing pool.

If it is a match, that letter is taken out of the testing pool.

Whether a successful match or a mistake, some random letter is picked from the remaining letters in the testing pool.

The testing cycle continues until you've successfully matched every letter with its ASL representation.

Cheers !

Re: ASL.sb, an app to help learn American Sign Language

Posted: Sun May 31, 2020 1:49 am
by Charlie
ASL Testing: Added "Digits: Find the Matching Sign"