Academic Use Case #1

Using LiveCode in research or teaching of post secondary topics? Share your interests with other academics.

Moderators: FourthWorld, heatherlaine, Klaus, kevinmiller, robinmiller

Post Reply
richmond62
Livecode Opensource Backer
Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9287
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:17 am
Location: Bulgaria

Academic Use Case #1

Post by richmond62 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:22 am

Recently some questions have arisen as to the sort of use academics (at Universities and so on) can put LiveCode to.

Although I am not currently affiliated to a university I have used LiveCode for a few academic uses, one of which is as follows:

BENGALI WRITING


Bengali is generally written in its own script which is a descendent of Brahmi script via demotic forms of Devanagari script, and as a result features a large lexicon of conjunct consonants.

A friend of mine who teaches Bengali at University asked me to design a flashcard program for students to memorise Bengali conjunct consonants.

As I had only got about a quarter of the way through this:
-
9780340552575-us.jpg
-
before I got badly demotivated, and that book is pretty sketchy re Bengali conjuncts, I decided to shop around, and eventually
ended up here:

https://omniglot.com/writing/bengali_conj.htm
-
Bconj.jpg

richmond62
Livecode Opensource Backer
Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9287
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:17 am
Location: Bulgaria

Re: Academic Use Case #1

Post by richmond62 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:31 am

So, quite obviously, my next search was for Bengali fonts and a peep at the Unicode specification re Bengali script.

1. No Bengali fonts contain much more than a reduced lexicon of conjuncts.

2. The Unicode specification contians NO glyph slots for conjuncts and expects end-users to do the 'fudge' that is
the current standard with Indic fonts of using halantam (half) characters to form ugly cockeyed conjuncts.

So I returned to the Omniglot page, realising that a vast lexicon of Bengali conjuncts was available there, but using some font
that was inaccessible to browser end-users.

I, therefore copied all the conjuncts on that page and pasted that into a LiveCode field:
-
Screen Shot 2022-09-29 at 12.31.25 PM.png
-
and, as you can see, that is pretty messy insofar as each glyph is separated from the next one by 'white space'

[this, it turns out, consists of 2 spaces between each glyph]

I popped " X" at the end of that fld to provide a control character to stop a loop.
Last edited by richmond62 on Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

richmond62
Livecode Opensource Backer
Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9287
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:17 am
Location: Bulgaria

Re: Academic Use Case #1

Post by richmond62 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:36 am

I, then chopped that information up and put each item into a different line in a scrolling list field:
-
Screen Shot 2022-09-29 at 12.51.35 PM.png
-

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   set the itemDelimiter to "  "
   put empty into fld "f2"
   put fld "f1" into XXX
   put 1 into GLYF
   repeat until item GLYF of XXX contains "X"
      put item GLYF of XXX into line GLYF of fld "f2"
      put GLYF into fld "GLYFZ"
      add 1 to GLYF
   end repeat
   put (cr & "X") after fld "f2"
end mouseUp
Last edited by richmond62 on Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

richmond62
Livecode Opensource Backer
Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9287
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:17 am
Location: Bulgaria

Re: Academic Use Case #1

Post by richmond62 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:38 am

Then, I exported the flashcards:
-
Screen Shot 2022-09-29 at 12.57.12 PM.png
-

Code: Select all

on mouseUp
   put 1 into LLL
   put 1 into KKK
   repeat until line LLL of fld "f2" contains "X"
      if the text of line LLL of fld "f2" contains " " then
         --do nix
         else
      set the text of fld "f4" to the text of line LLL of fld "f2"
      export snapshot from fld "f4" to file ("Bangla" & KKK & ".png") as PNG
      add 1 to KKK
      end if
      put LLL into fld "GLYFZ"
      add 1 to LLL
   end repeat
end mouseUp
-
Bangla52.png
Bangla52.png (6.68 KiB) Viewed 2317 times

richmond62
Livecode Opensource Backer
Livecode Opensource Backer
Posts: 9287
Joined: Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:17 am
Location: Bulgaria

Re: Academic Use Case #1

Post by richmond62 » Thu Sep 29, 2022 11:01 am

Obviously, from there, it is dead easy to make a flashcard program for students to get up-and-running
with Bengali conjunct consonants,either with LiveCode or any of the plethora of free flashcard programs:

http://flashcardhero.com/

HOWEVER, without the LiveCode work my friend would have had to spend hours preparing flashcards.

Post Reply

Return to “Research and Post Secondary”