[BRLTTY] Should we start modernizing grade 2 symbols?

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hi folks,

At least some of brltty's grade 2 representations of special
characters (=, <, >, [, ], and others) are I think either from an
older code or maybe home-grown. Attached is a patch that moves some of
these into the modern (January 2008) era. Note that with one exception
the question here is not "do we like these new configurations". The
questions are, A, did I apply the new standards properly, and B, what
did I miss?

The one exception that I don't think we can apply is the
underscore. Unless I'm mistaken it's supposed to be dots 4-6. The
problem is that brltty drops into computer braille for certain things
it decides are computer codes. In computer braille dots 4-6 is the
period, of course, and this leaves confusion as to exactly what these
dots may represent.

There are two ways around this: 1, Change brltty to stop mixing
computer braille and grade 2 and just translate everything. The
computer braille translations aren't all that consistent anyway. For
example, the URL:

http://loc.gov/nls/catalog

remains completely in grade 2. I suspect an additional "literal" line
would fix this but I haven't tested it.

The other thing we could do is make the computer braille translations
more consistent when using grade 2. Personally I prefer the former
approach. None of the 1.1 other screenreaders I've used (the .1 was
barely learned) attempt to decide when they should stop using grade
2. Furthermore, if someone gets annoyed at the grade 2 translation of
anything, including computer-type stuff, they can turn off grade 2
with a single keystroke (at least with all the displays I've used).

So, what do people think?

Have fun,

-- 

Lee Maschmeyer

"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear
to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than
what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
     --Lewis Carroll
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