@sutton-signwriting/core

@sutton-signwriting/core

@sutton-signwriting/core is a javascript package for node and browsers that supports general processing of SignWriting text.

This package supports both Formal SignWriting in ASCII (FSW) and SignWriting in Unicode (SWU) character sets, along with the associated query languages and style string. See draft-slevinski-formal-signwriting for detailed specification.

Version 2 of the core library adds support for the SignWriting Null character as S00000 in Formal SignWriting in ASCII (FSW) and U+40000 in SignWriting in Unicode (SWU). The SignWriting Null character is allowed in the temporal prefix used for sorting, but the SignWriting Null character is not allowed in the two-dimensional arrangement of symbols. The fonts do not provide a glyph for the SignWriting Null character yet. You can use Ø, alt-0216, U+00D8 as a visualization of the SignWriting Null character.

Version 2 of the core library also provides a tokenizer for FSW to be used for machine learning researchers & developers. The default tokenizer follows patterns similar to those used in NLP with special tokens ([CLS], [SEP], [PAD], [UNK]). It enables converting SignWriting into numerical representations suitable for machine learning models.

Use Cases:

• Sign language recognition systems
• Sign language generation
• Sign language translation models

Key Features:

• Flexible tokenization options (sequence/signbox flags)
• Bidirectional conversion (FSW ↔ tokens)
• Handles complex features (symbols, coordinates, and structures)
• Well-documented code
• Modular design allows for different use cases

Author: https://SteveSlevinski.me
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXu4AXlG0rXFtk_5SzumDow
Support: https://www.patreon.com/signwriting
Donate: https://donate.sutton-signwriting.io

Useful links

• Source: https://github.com/sutton-signwriting/core
• Distribution: https://unpkg.com/browse/@sutton-signwriting/core/
• Documentation: https://www.sutton-signwriting.io/core/
• Issue Tracker: https://github.com/sutton-signwriting/core/issues
• Online Discussion: https://gitter.im/sutton-signwriting/community

Types of files

The source is written in small ES Modules available in the src directory along with the associated tests.

The distribution is available in three flavors. 28 KB for the whole library minified. Individual modules as small as 3 KB.

• .js - Universal Module Definition
• .cjs - CommonJS
• .mjs - ES Module

Installation

Download and Install with NPM

npm install @sutton-signwriting/core

Developer Installation

Download from GitHub and Install Development Dependencies

wget https://github.com/sutton-signwriting/core/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd core-master
npm install

Install tsc command line tool

sudo apt install node-typescript

Usage

Using in Node

// import entire library
const core = require('@sutton-signwriting/core');

// import individual module
const fsw = require('@sutton-signwriting/core/fsw');

Using in the Browser

Local files

// import entire library
// available as ssw.core
<script src="core.js"></script>

// import individual module
// available as ssw.fsw
<script src="fsw/fsw.js"></script>

Unpkg

// import entire library
// available as ssw.core
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@sutton-signwriting/core@1.6.0"></script>

// import individual module
// available as ssw.fsw
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@sutton-signwriting/core@1.6.0/fsw/fsw.js"></script>

License

MIT

SignWriting General Interest

• SignWriting Website: https://signwriting.org/
• Sutton SignWriting Resources: https://www.sutton-signwriting.io/
• Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting
• Email Discussion: https://www.signwriting.org/forums/swlist/
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SuttonSignWriting/