William Overington

Thank you for replying. Are you bragging or complaining? I too am retired. No more having to get up to go to work or seeking work. Great. Alas I wish I had had this freedom when I was young and more active. As you wish, but you did write and comment on my ideas and I was enjoying the discussion. Well, that's fine. Some people like a chat about what people are doing with Affinity products and some do not. Freedom of choice. Actually I was not aware of that. William

Well, if you so choose. I had hoped that we could have a good discussion. The problem that I have had over many years is that various people in various forums have dismissed the idea then when I ask for reasons and discussion they either do not reply, refuse, or try to rely on their reputation. I am a researcher and if I have got it wrong then I will change direction, but I will not change direction simply because someone says so without presenting and defending an academic position that demonstrates his or her position as correct and the position is resilient to scrutiny. William

There is also the following from 23rd January 2012. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse027_simulation_five.pdf William

I do not understand how that text relates to this discussion. William

Well, it could be more than a few hundred, but there would be a limit to practical implementation, a balance between having more capability with more sentences yet more sentences requiring more computation. So what number would be practical is a matter to consider. Yet please consider, for example, automated telephone banking, as implemented at present. Quite a lot can be done with a relatively small number of sentences that can be expressed by the automated system that uses prerecorded messages. Yet not everything can be done, so the automated system has a way to go through to a human advisor. However, quite a lot can be achieved using automated telephone banking using a relatively small number of sentences. There is no case for not having telephone banking because, for example, it cannot discuss what is on television this evening with the customer. There are some idioms in English, but the examples that you quote are just what is known as slang. I don't say things are 'cool' or 'bad' in that manner. Some people do, many do not. It is certainly not the language of serious discussion and professional writing. Yet a significant feature of the localizable sentences invention is that the end user does need to know any language other than his or her native language. English might well be used in an International Standard to set up the system, but that is because International Standards are in English. The following slide show will hopefully be helpful. It can be viewed from the web, but is best when downloaded then run within Adobe Reader as it then runs full screen, where one presses the Enter key to move to the next slide and the Esc to leave. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/slide_show_about_localizable_sentences.pdf Here is a link to an earlier document, from 10th January 2012. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse027_four_simulations.pdf William

Yes, that seems a good way to put it. Talking of Chinese, I saw that there are some free OpenLearn courses about Chinese. I have not looked at them, but I did notice them being available when I was looking at language courses. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue William

When I make a custom greeting card using my artwork I like to add, using the facility at the website, to use the page where the greeting usually goes to include information about the picture, my name, and the date, as month year. I usually use the Garamond typeface at 12, 14, 16 or 18 point depending on much text I want to put in the card. For the two previous localizable sentence cards I have included a localization into English. As this card has much less text I am thinking of having a localization into English and a localization into French. I am thinking of having the following. It is summer. It is sunny. Is it cloudy? Indefinite yes. C'est l'été. C'est ensoleillé. Est-ce nuageux? Indéfini oui. So that is eleven lines, so adding a blank line, one line for my name, a blank line, one line for the date, gives a total of fifteen lines so I can probably add a note about the picture being made from clip art and the original electronic version being from 3 June 2011. William William

Well, I a a researcher and I am willing to reconsider my position in the light of evidence. So if you wish you are welcome to provide some specific examples of how this would work using Chinese characters and English and French and there could be a discussion, with other readers also participating if they so choose. I only mention English and French because my native language is English and I know a little French, and that may be fairly common in this forum, but other languages can be included as well if people so choose. WIlliam

Well not as best I know because one would need to learn Chinese language structure. My idea is that each glyph is a whole grammatically stand-alone sentence and is language-independent. You might perhaps like the slide show that is available from the following web page. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_research.htm William

1. Because there is only one cloud in the whole sky, the sun is shining in a mostly clear sky, so the giraffe gives an answer to give as best an indication as possible within the available collection of encoded sentences as to the situation. 2. She is a ladybird. The fact that you can only observe three legs does not mean that she only has three legs. Three other legs are occluded from your view by her body. William

I was looking for something else, as mentioned in the following post, https://community.serif.com/discussion/113998/localizable-sentences-the-second-novel?page=45#reply383510 and I found the following PDF document that I produced many years ago. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse010_art.pdf The images in the picture are Serif clip art. The caption is using a font that I made years ago, possibly lost, though I did not think if that at first, but not to worry as will be explained. So I decided that, as I now have the ability to obtain one-off nicely-printed greetings cards that I would try to make a jpg file and send off for a greetings card. So I opened the PDF document in Affinity Designer. Oh. A missing font. Would I like Arial instead? No, no, no! Fortunately the glyphs in that font are in a later version of the font, so I used that all was well. For those readers who might like to try it out, the font that I used is available here. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/LOCSE977.TTF I selected all and copied onto the clipboard. I then set up an Affinity Designer document of the size I need for the card by saving a copy of the third unicorn card with a new name, clearing the page and then pasting the image from the clipboard. As a first try, and I may in fact use this result, I produced a design for the front of the greetings card. I selected all, grouped, and then I used the transform panel to increase the size of the image by a factor of two both horizontally and vertically by doubling the values and inserting those numbers. I then centred the image. Ah. The glyphs in the caption were still the same size. So I had to double the point size manually, but alas the space before the giraffe's reply was much reduced in size, so I had to add more spaces. So it looks quite good. I am trying to find a way to check whether I have got the space before the giraffe's reply as accurate a copy of the original as possible. I expect that some (almost all?) readers of this post might wonder about the meaning of the caption. Here is a link to a document which displays the glyphs and their English localizations. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse027.pdf The idea is that the message is expressed in the image in a language-independent form. The message could be sent electronically in a language-independent form using codes that can be found in the following document. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/A_List_of_Code_Numbers_and_English_Localizations_for_use_in_Research_on_Communication_through_the_Language_Barrier_using_encoded_Localizable_Sentences.pdf I suppose that I need a document with glyphs to language-independent code numbers. There is a document that partially does that, but I need to explain that to use each of those codes one needs to either use the number as it is but with an exclamation mark before it, as in, for example !123 or to use an integral sign followed by the digits each expressed as a circled digit character. In either case, use a space between the codes, for example !127 !983 http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_novel_chapter_078.pdf William

Can one get card that is metallic all through please? T know that one can get card that is yellow all the way through. I know that one can get white card with a metallic finish. The reason I ask is because I am wondering if one could print something such as the rete of an astrolabe onto such card if it exists and then cut out the holes and it all look metallic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe William

Each of them landscape or portrait. This because the frames that I have used are fitted with two hook eyes and a thick card diagonal that can be used for freestanding. Storing horizontal in a drawer would not use any of the fittings. If one wishes one could use a self-adhesive label (not supplied with the frame) to add provenance information to the back of the frame, such as the date of framing or whatever information one chooses to add. Well, storing in a drawer is not implied by the descriptions. Yet such could be a useful facility in some circumstances to make a piece of paper or card or even some piece of cloth or maybe something else flat into a noticeable heirloom rather than just keep it in an envelope somewhere where it might not be noticed. For an invitation or the like the envelope could be included too, perhaps behind the picture so not normally observed., William

Ooh! Tesco's range of frames has gone overnight from almost none to lots. https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=frames Sixteen types listed online when not signed in but only eight types listed locally online, but including the two I want. Interestingly Tesco lists four possible uses, but there is a fifth use, namely to use to store something in a drawer. So maybe for something that one wishes to conserve in a noticeable format yet not put on display, such as an invitation to a party or a sheet of A4 artwork which one has used for scanning for making a handwriting font. William

Wow, that is clever. William

Having tried some experiments it seems that to get the result to look like a cube rather than a cuboid that I need to start with a rectangle that is 1 unit wide to root 3 upon 2 units high. I am still experimenting with the top of the cube. William

Thank you. Well, the technique used seems to be exactly what I am seeking. But the result is not quite. I am wanting two cubes side by side, so four faces each with an image, two faces on each of two cubes. The left image of cube 1 as Good day. The right image of cube 1 and the left image of cube 2 each as the language-independent symbol. The right image of cube 2 as Bonjour. Yet if I knew how you produced your image I might be able to use the technique to produce the result that I seek. It seems that you have rotated and sheared by the same angle but in opposite directions. That is clever. The 30 degrees reminds me of isometric projection. So can you explain how you did it, and how you knew that that was how to do it please? Also I would like to put tops on the cubes so that they look solid. Why is the bus or lorry or whatever it is in the background please? William

Would it help to have what I call a typecase PDF document? Here ia a post that I produced some time ago. https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2015-m07/0121.html Would one of those but for LaTex symbols solve the problem? William

Can you say exactly what you would like to be able to do in Affinity Publisher that you cannot do now please? William

An attempt to produce a greetings card showing two 3D views of a locsencube starts at the third post of page 9 of the Artwork for Greetings Cards thread. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/138654-artwork-for-greetings-cards/page/9/ William

Some readers may have seen the following thread. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/147165-locsencubes/ I have got the idea that I would like to produce a landscape greetings card with two locsencubes at angled views (is that the correct term?) such that the one on the left shows a view with the English text panel and the language-independent symbol panel; and the one on the right shows the language-independent symbol panel and the French text panel. I have been looking at the possibility of using Microsoft 3D Builder to make a model of the locsencube, exporting two PDF documents by using Print to PDF, then opening the PDF documents in Affinity Designer, extracting the image files and then combining them in an Affinity Designer canvas of a size suitable for producing a greetings card. Thus far I have not been able to find out how, or if, one can texture a cube in 3D Builder. I have previously managed to texture a flat surface, but that may have been by using Paint 3D. Maybe I need to do four individual rotated panels and patch them together in Affinity Designer. Has anyone here used 3D Builder and Paint 3D in a similar manner please? Or is there a way to produce what I want using just Affinity Designer? William

Actually, that is two Coventry Cathedrals, plural. Though it appears that there were three Coventry Cathedrals, though not all at the same time. At the left is the Old Cathedral, that was severely damaged in World War 2, in what is known as the Coventry Blitz. The Old Cathedral has no roof as a result of the bomb damage. At the right is the New Cathedral, that was built after the war. The Old Cathedral was designated as a cathedral in 1918, it was already an old building but had been a parish church for centuries. I saw on television some time ago about remains of the original Coventry Cathedral that had been found, a few hundred yards behind the New Cathedral. Services are sometimes held in the Old Cathedral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Cathedral William

A locsencube is mentioned in Chapter 61. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_second_novel_chapter_061.pdf William

A supplementary note has been added to the first post in this thread. Here is a transcript of that note. ---- An error was detected in the locsencube design detailed in the PDF document, after the description of the design had been published. This was in the location of the trapeziums. So the design error of the locsencube was corrected, the description in the text of the story altered accordingly, some additional text was added too, and the new PDF document has replaced the PDF document that was published on Friday 6 August 2021. So the description in the PDF document now available does not match the above diagrams. William ---- I gave some thought as to how to resolve the issue. I wondered whether to keep the original version available and have a version 2 as a separate PDF document. However, as the error was just in the placement of the trapeziums and did not affect the concept or the story, I decided to replace the original document, yet include a note recording what had happened in the narrative while I am writing the story. The narrative is available here. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/locse_novel2.htm The first novel, with the author notes, is available here. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/novel_plus.htm The narrative notes produced as the first novel was being written are linked from that web page. William

And just for completeness, I downloaded a copy of the file recovered from the post earlier in this thread and the facility decoded that too. William