Vote on what we should fix next

[emk]

2) a RTL block implementation.

Wait, look, what's that over there? →

أهلاً و سهلاً

I might be able to volunteer a little time in the future for specific projects...

The more the merrier.

[emk]

OK, I love you folks. Six people have voted for hieroglyphic support.

So I hereby present you with:


r n(y) km.t
"The language of Egypt"


mdw-nTr
"The divine speech"

To learn the codes, see any introduction to the Manuel de Codage. And then write something like:

Code: Select all

[mdc]r:1-n-km-m-t:O49[/mdc]

The text is rendered by a hacked-up copy of the excellent JSesh and some custom Java servlet code. Please do not post hundreds of hieroglyphs in the same thread; that will overload the hieroglyph server and make it emit smoke.

Anyway, I think this gives us certain bragging rights as a language forum: I'm aware of several specialized Egyptology forums, and none of ones I've seen can do this. We have features for the discerning language lover! We'll show you the forum UI in Finnish, we support right-to-left text, we're running Unilang's excellent IPA keyboard, and now we have built-in hieroglyph rendering. I'm not sure if any of this is reasonable, but it's certainly fun.

[Via Diva]

There could be indeed a small “corrections welcome“ somewhere around the message, maybe in the area where the date stands, or somewhere around the signature (but not in the signature. Would also be great if there was a switch like “Would you want to receive corrections for this post?“. And it's insanely awesome if a system like that of lang-8 applied, whereas the posts with corrections are shown under the corrected post like a clickable line (I believe the bbcode for that is spoiler).
(Sadly I'm just a student of chemical engineering and can't write any sort of code. But I can draw what it looks like, if I am not expressing myself clearly enough here)
Also we can create groups/ titles. I think groups are an excellent way to promote TAC and create a feeling of belonging - it's hard to forget about your team if you see a constant reminder next to your every message. Quite a few people participate in several teams - then it's either several groups (if possible), or a special group for people who participate in several teams, individually and the like. Instead of *** belt it would be great to have a field which you can fill as you'd like (I remember waiting to reach 1000 messages on a Russian sports forum in order to be able to write what I want in such a field, hehe).
P.S. The input window with we_universal seems to have just the right size, so cross that complaint out. But it's still hard to hit the icons for “first unread message“.
P.P.S. And also different fonts for messages and spoilers for long texts would be good and probably easy to organise.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

This hieroglyphics are great haha

[emk]

(You had what appeared to be an accidental duplicate post, by the way, so I marked it as deleted. I hope you don't mind.)

This hieroglyphics are great haha

Just please be sure to use them in moderation. It's a very tiny server that generates those images, and it can't keep up with lots of posts containing lots of "mdc" tags.

And yes, one of the more challenging things about learning Middle Egyptian is keeping all the nearly-identical-looking birds straight. It's really easy to confuse certain pairs of similar-looking signs:



For example, the third bird there is read wr, and it means "large, important." (It also appears in the adjective wr.t "very".) The fourth bird is read bin, and it means "bad, evil." It's often used as a "determinative", to clarify the meaning intended by other symbols, which is necessary because Egyptian only writes the consonants. The third and the fourth bird can be written in very similar sizes, and you often need to look at the shape of the tail to tell them apart.

Obviously, mixing up any of these pairs of birds can make a text really confusing! So you learn to squint carefully. Sometimes I really want a copy of a book named something like "A Birdwatcher's Guide to the Nile."

[Serpent]

just playing around, sorry along with emk's log this will probably be the thread with the most hieroglyphs

[daegga]

Is there a bug in the cartouche rendering? The following two sequences should be the same:



edit: with additional dashes it seems to work as intended

[emk]

Is there a bug in the cartouche rendering? The following two sequences should be the same:

You want:

Code: Select all

[mdc]<-H-T-l-A-l->[/mdc]

...with a extra dashes around the angle brackets. The "mdc" tag uses the same encoding conventions as JSesh, which are slightly more powerful than standard MdC.

Of course, before people get too carried away, I feel like I ought to mention that cartouches are only used for royal names in Egyptian, and not for ordinary people or for common nouns. What, me, a language pendant?

Also note that transliterating foreign words into hieroglyphs can be tricky. Unfortunately, most of the "your name in hieroglyph" sites are alarmingly bad. If you want to write your name in hieroglyphs, then you should to do it phonetically, and you should use special symbols like the lion for sounds that aren't normally used in Egyptian. (The Egyptians had a whole convention for writing foreign words phonetically!) If you want to translate a name or a foreign word, this Flash site is the best introduction I've seen to how to do it reasonably correctly. Using this site, I get the following without a cartouche:

Code: Select all

[mdc]h-t-l-A-l[/mdc]

But I'm not too certain about that vowel. It's definitely a fun site, though.

[zenmonkey]

2) a RTL block implementation.

Wait, look, what's that over there? →

أهلاً و سهلاً

I might be able to volunteer a little time in the future for specific projects...

The more the merrier.

That's great, thanks!
I need to settle down a bit - get some stuff in order and I'll look into it. I've installed the Docker Toolbox at least...

[Teango]

Absolutely love the new Egyptian hieroglyphs feature (can't wait to try it) - Daniel and all the guys from the lab thank you, monsieur!