DP Tool Club 31/CDASC_31_1996_juillet_aout.iso/vrac/nfbtr745.zip/READ.ME

Text File | 1996-03-28 | 19KB | 405 lines

Welcome to my latest release of nfbtrans 7.45 March 27, 1996.

files included:
read.me: this file.
nfbtrans.fmt: documentation for nfbtrans formatted for brailling with nfbtrans.
makedoc.bat: batch file to convert nfbtrans.fmt to a print manual.
nfbtrans.c: source for nfbtrans.
nfbpatch.c: routines required to run nfbtrans in unix.
nfbtrans.exe: executable DOS version of nfbtrans.
nfbtrans: make file for MicroSoft C.
nfbasm.asm: sound routines for MicroSoft C.
Makefile: make file for unix.
nfbtrans.cnf: sample configuration file.
braille.tab: English braille translation table.
back.tab: Table to translate a Grade 2 file back to text.
tables.zip: foreign language tables for nfbtrans.
english.dic: hyphenization dictionary.
tvfreqs.fmt example of a braille table.

The NFB released the Pascal source for nfbtrans in 1992 and challenged pro-
grammers to make improvements.    I converted it to C in December 1992.

My purpose in releasing this version of nfbtrans is to make a high quality
braille translation program available to anyone who has a use for it.  It has
many improvements over the original nfbtrans.  It does not do some things
programs like Hot Dots and Turbo Braille do.  It doesn't support braille
graphics and it cannot translate WordPerfect files unless they are converted
to ascii.  It is very usable for most situations and will at least give you a
feel for braille translation.

Installing nfbtrans for MSDOS:
Copy nfbtrans.exe, braille.tab, back.tab and nfbtrans.cnf to a
directory on your hard disk.  Braille.tab and nfbtrans.cnf are both required.
back.tab is needed only if you back translate a Grade 2 file to text.
Examine the entries in nfbtrans.cnf and
make changes if you wish.  See nfbtrans.fmt for a complete
description of options.  Include this directory in your path if you want to
run nfbtrans from anywhere on your disk.

Installing nfbtrans for Unix:
     Copy makefile, nfbtrans.c and nfbpatch.c to a directory.
     Compile nfbtrans by entering make target where target is ultrix, sunos, or
aix.  You will have to add the target for your machine to makefile if it
is not ultrix, sunos, or aix.  When the compile is successful, copy nfbtrans
to usually /usr/local/bin and set permissions usually chmod 755 nfbtrans.
Copy nfbtrans.cnf, back.tab and braille.tab to /usr/local/lib.    Edit nfbtrans.cnf
and change options if necessary.

Quick Start:
Always use the parallel port to connect with your embossor if possible.
Otherwise use the mode command to redirect lpt1 to whatever com port
you are using.
Examine nfbtrans.cnf paying special attention to the entries pw=, pl= and sp=.
Make sure your printer is configured to output computer braille, skip perfs,
and that it supports the page width and length given in nfbtrans.cnf.
Make sure the DOS print command is resident if you set sp=1.

Nfbtrans can be run in several ways.
The syntax is:
NFBTRANS [option1] [option2] [...] [file1] [file2] [...].
Options are of the form xx=string.  They are fully described in nfbtrans.fmt.
There are over 85 options many of which you will never need to use.  They
may be given on the command line, in nfbtrans.cnf, in the translation table,
or in the document to be embossed.

1.  To emboss a file, enter nfbtrans with no arguments and answer the questions.
2.  Enter nfbtrans pw=42 pl=27 myfile.txt to emboss myfile.txt page width of
42 and page length of 27.
3.  Enter nfbtrans file1.txt file2.txt to emboss file1.txt and file2.txt.
4.  Enter nfbtrans file1.txt file2.txt >outfile to translate file1.txt and
     file2.txt to outfile.
5.  Enter nfbtrans <file.txt to emboss file.txt.
6.  Enter nfbtrans <file.txt >outfile.txt to translate file.txt to outfile.txt.
7.  Enter type infile.txt | nfbtrans to emboss infile.txt.
8.  Enter nfbtrans d:\progs\*.c c:\pascal\*.pas to emboss the .c and .pas
     files in the given directories.
9. Enter nfbtrans @listfile c:\temp\*.h to emboss the files contained in
listfile and then the .h files in c:\temp.

The file to be translated is assumed to be an ascii text file.    Lines may
be of any length.  Characters from decimal 128-255 are
processed according to the gm= option. gm=0 causes the high bit to be removed,
gm=1 causes the character to be ignored, and gm=2 leaves the character
unmodified.  This character will be translated according to the rules in
braille.tab.  Graphics characters are used primarily with other languages.

For properly formatted braille you must use the nfbtrans formatting commands.
Formatting commands are indicated by a tilde preceeding the actual formatting
command.  For example (tilde)cChapter One
willl center the line Chapter One.
If you don't care if headings are centered or if columns of tables are
aligned properly then don't worry about formatting commands.  Nfbtrans
can determine the start of a paragraph.  If paragraphs are preceeded by a
blank line use block paragraph mode (tilde)5.  If paragraphs are indented use
(tilde)t. Use (tilde)6 if you want nfbtrans to scan the file before
translating to determine how paragraphs are formatted. Nfbtrans can be set
up to rejoin hyphenated words in the file.  You may also use the optional
hyphenation dictionary english.dic to automatically hyphenate words.

Nfbtrans translates files differently depending on their extension.  This is
determined by the ex= and i0= through i9= options in nfbtrans.cnf.
Note that if input is redirected as in nfbtrans <infile.c, the program never
sees the name infile.c.  The input file is set to stdin if input is
redirected which means that infile.c will not be treated as a .c file.
Use the si= option if you want to name it something else.
By default nfbtrans translates files into grade two braille with the
nfbtrans formatting commands enabled.
Files with .arc, .arj, .com, .exe, .obj, .qwk, .zip and .zoo are considered
binary files and are not translated.
Files with .asm, .bas, .bat, .c, .cpp, .h, .mac, and .pas are considered
program files and are output in non-standard computer braille.
.brl files are output in grade two with formatting enabled.  .prt files are
output in 80 column format standard computer braille.  .man files
are considered unix man pages and are output in nonstandard computer braille and
block paragraphs.
.fmt files are output in Grade Two with formatting enabled and no file and
date printed at the top of page one. Blank lines within two lines of the
bottom cause nfbtrans to go to the next page.
All other extensions are translated to Grade two with formatting enabled.


History:
7.45:
Fixed various unix problems including incorrect display of error messages.
Fixed rejoining of hyphenated words in computer braille.
Allow user to specify only Roman pages in the page range to emboss.

7.44:
Added new feature to TOC ~f command.
Added te= and to= options.
Corrected error in back.tab.
Added linux target for unix.

7.43:
Corrected problems translating mixed numbers and letters.
More improvements in back.tab.
Modified the tf= option so the back translation table can also be specified.
Corrected problem left justifying columns with the td= option.
Added kf= option for formatting back translation output.

7.42:
Added rc=, lp= rp= and tp= option.
Simplified operation of the hm= and rw= options.
removed he= option.
Improved back translation.

7.41:
Fixed problem of not joining words with, of, and for broken in 7.35.
Fixed problem where hyphenated words ending in punctuation were split and the
     punctuation was dropped.
Output the file name as well as line number when a character isn't in the
     table.
Do validity check on options such as page width must be less than 255.
Added hp= and ob= option.
Fixed bm=15 option which occasionally crashed.
Added ts= option to output table stats.
Allow any character including space to be in replace string of table.
Added back.tab and modified code to back translate a Grade 2 file.

7.40:
Added hb= hl= hn= and hx= options.
Added bit six to the hm= option to automate adding words to dictionary.
Removed debugging statement accidentally left in the ~h command.

7.39:
Fixed bug in the ~i\ italics command deleting first character of word if
     first word of file.
     Fixed problems with reps* and repw* EFL commands.
Modified operation of oc= to control case of computer braille.
Changed operation of le= option to allow a global .efl file.
Fixed problems caused when input line length changed when using EFL.
Added option, line and graphics keywords to .efl language.
Added type 16 for German language.

7.38:
Added vc= option defining vowels and consonants for table types 13-15.
Fixed problem with trailing punctuation and the hm= option.
Allow the | no translate symbol in the hyphenization dictionary.
Fixed problem where a space was left after to or by before a split word.
Fixed program crash when there is only one entry in table for each letter.
Fixed output case to correspond with oc= option when the | no translate
     symbol is used.
Program automatically does consistency check whenever dictionary files are
     updated.
Changed the order in which nfbtrans looks for nfbtrans.cnf in DOX and UNIX
     to NFBTRANS environment variable, current directory, and location of
     program in DOS or /usr/local/lib in Unix.
Fixed errors in unix version preventing hyphenization dictionary from working.
Allow type 7 contractions like ation at end of hyphenated words.
Prevent type 2 contractions from being used in beginning of hyphenated words.

7.37:
Fixed problem where program could not find file with the hd= and ht= option.
Added ability to store hyphenated words in a file with the hm= option.

7.36:
Fixed problem of incorrect line numbers reported with the ht= option.
Report line numbers with the ht= option making it easier to add words.
Added another bit to the hm= option to output words which were not found.

7.35:
Fixed problems with grate 2 graphics character translation.
Allow graphics characters to be specified within brackets in braille.tab.
Fixed problem where vertical bar and grade two graphics caused the table to be
     modified.
Added bm=book_mode option.
Added tc= option for customized TOC header.
Added hyphenation dictionary options hd= and ht=.
Added hm= option to specify type of words to hyphenate.
Fixed ~p command broken in 7.34.

7.34:
Fixed problem with hyphen file while doing automatic TOC.
Remove space after dash if a hyphenated word is not rejoined. half-an- hour
     becomes half-an-hour.
Output vertical bar if math table is active.
Allow graphics characters to have types 1-11 in braille.tab.
Added type 12 and l2= option for Dutch braille.
Added dm=message to display a message.
Added oc= option to change case of the output.

7.33:
Added math options ma= ms= and mt=.
Added be= option to output a beep.
Added fc= option to change fill character in Table of Contents.
Added if= option to ignore certain format characters.

7.32:
Improved italics support.

7.31:
Added l0 and l1 options.
Improved italics support.
Added li= option to indicate end of input lines.

7.30:
Fixed bug where table entries for extended graphics characters gave an error.
Added tf= option to load another set of translation rules.
braille.tab can contain command line options.
Type 29 was added indicating upper case graphics characters.
eb= option was replaced with ca= for user definable capitalization marks.
Added it= option for user definable italics marks.
Added gm=3 to abort program if a graphics character is used but not in table.
Added tn= option for default translation mode.
Added le= option to load an External Format Language file.
Fixed problem of input lines not being counted properly during automatic
     paragraph formatting.
Modified rw= option so graphics characters can be considered letters.
Added (tilde)_ for hard carriage return.
Added reps* and repw* to replace multiple occurrences of strings or words.
Added several foreign language tables in tables.zip.

7.29:
Added eb= option for English braille, no capitalization marks.
Added options ia through ie so up to 15 extension types can be defined.
Require that nfbtrans be compiled in the large memory model.

7.28:
Abort if the last word of a (tilde)f is too long.
Added gd= option specifying the minimum number of guide dots that will be
output.
Added td= option to define a multi column table.

7.27:
Removed rg= option and added gm= option to support extended graphics
characters.
Added more rules to braille.tab.
Modified operation of (tilde)p:n to disable a prior (tilde)pn until next page.
Modified operation of (tilde)f so user can mark the last word.

7.26:
Read nfbtrans.cnf before each file is processed.
Added replace options to external format language.
Added another page break option (tilde)p:n to cause page breaks if within n lines
from the bottom of the page.
Do not translate the word us if uppercase.

7.25:
Fixed incorrect line length reported in statistics file if margin greater
     than one.
Added pd=2 to print date but not time on first line. Allow more than 20
characters for filename if pd=0.
Fixed problem of options being mistaken for filenames on command line.
Creates different files when sp=1 and two files translated within one second.
Added ability to change where line breaks occur with old type of TOC entry.

7.24:
Modified the (tilde)p command for conditional page breaks.  (tilde)p can also skip
to the next right facing page for interpoint embossors.
Added lf= option so a group of files can be embossed as one file.
Changed nfbtrans.doc to nfbtrans.fmt with nfbtrans formatting
commands to produce a respectable braille manual.
Fixed several problems including incorrect page numbers in Table of Contents,
unnecessary reloading of table switching from grade zero to  two, and certain
words being joined together when switching from grade two to computer braille.
Added more error trapping with format commands.

7.23:
Modified rw= option to produce a hyphen file so users can select words
not to rejoin.
Improved handling of (tilde)f table of contents command.  Nfbtrans can automatically
determine braille page numbers for a Table of Contents.
nfbtrans.exe has been compiled for 80286 Processors.

7.22:
Don't rejoin words if the first word has more than one dash or if the second
word has one or more dashes.
Report the correct line number with rw=2.

7.21:
Fixed problem of embossing an extra page where a page range is specified.
If the interpoint option is set and a page range is specified, the ending page
is set to an even page so the back side of the last page will be printed.
Look for a .efl file only if the input file is an ordinary file.
Added qm quiet mode option.
Added rw=2 to list rejoined words during translation.

7.20:
Command line arguments other than xx= options are considered to be files to
be translated or embossed.  They must come after the xx= options if any.
File names starting with the @ character indicate a file containing a list
of files to be translated.
nfbtrans.cnf is now a required file.
Fixed problem of occasionally outputting a blank page with a page number at
the end of a file.
Improved operation of wildcards in DOS.
Modified the pf= option so that pf=2 means print filename rather than entire
path.
Removed fx option.
Added ef=n option.  See External Format Language in nfbtrans.doc.
Improved coding for external format language.
Added (tilde)6 automatic paragraph format command.
Added sp=2 telling program to pause between files so print queue
won't overflow.
Added si= option.
Added et= option.

7.19:
Allow ex= to specify a base file name.    If a file has no extension, a search
is done on the base name of a file.
Eliminated output of blank lines in text mode.
Fixed problem where long words were split and characters were lost because
of page numbers.
Added pn= print device option.
Fixed problem where progress messages appeared in the output file when output
was redirected.
Improved operation of the (tilde)3 command.
Add kc keep control characters option.
Toggle sound on/off by pressing space during translation.

7.18:
Added new type 11 meaning beginning but not all.  Changed numeric
type to 19.
Fixed problem causing printing of only the first file if sp=1 and wildcards
were used.
Fixed the (tilde)- option so it could be followed by other tilde commands.
Fixed problem of program outputting occasional blank lines.
Fixed error where words > page width lost characters when split to next line.

7.17:
Improved coding for joining hyphenated words.
Added option rg= so characters >127 are ignored.
Improved handling of words greater than the page width.  This could happen
when translating a mathematical formula or an 80 column line of dashes.
Words consisting of repeated characters are truncated to the current line
length.  Alternating characters like -=-=-= are also considered repeating
characters.
Words of non-repeating characters are put on subsequent lines.    Words more than
132 characters are truncated.
Previous versions always used 6 characters for the page number in the upper
right corner.  This has been changed to 4 if page is less than 10 and 5
if page is less than 100.
Backspace ctrl-h characters are handled properly.  This is useful for
printing unix man pages where ^h is used to underline words.

7.16:
Added an alternative to 8-dot braille.    Output is computer braille with the
     addition of braille capitalization marks and dots 56 to indicate
     lowercase.
Eliminated the obsolete options fi= fo= po= tilde tilde =.
Added options fs=format_string.
Added option cs= so embossing time can be estimated if sp=1.
Improved error checking while loading braille.tab.  Match strings must
now be in lexical order.

7.15:
 Added support for IO redirection.
Rejoins hyphenated words before translation.
Change lines of underscores to dashes for nicer looking braille.
Added support for interpoint printers.
Supports the DOS print command for embossing in backround.
Will optionally number first page.
Automatic centering of multiple lines.
Can emboss multiple files in DOS with wildcards.
User can configure nfbtrans to translate files depending on their extension.
     for example .c files in computer braille and .brl in Grade 2.
User can translate to Grade 3 using only dot 4, 5, 45 and 456 contractions.
     See (tilde)31 and (tilde)32 in nfbtrans.doc.
User can select to put filename and/or date at top of first page.
Added format options (tilde)4 block, (tilde)5 block paragraph and (tilde)-option to call a
command line option in a format command.
Ending page can also be entered at the starting page prompt.

Send bug reports to [e-mail].