Hello Amir and Everyone...
I am glad to know that you have seen the outstanding and impressive programming that went into creating written SignWriting in vertical columns on the Wikimedia Incubator. Many thanks to everyone who volunteered their time, and continue to volunteer their time to make this possible.
Regarding Unicode...
SignWriting was established in Unicode version 8 in mid-2015. So it is in Unicode already.
Here is a link:
Wikipedia: SignWriting Unicode Block
SignWriting Character Viewer
The only problem? It is not working correctly within Unicode to give us the layout issues... In other words, the characters of the International SignWriting Alphabet (the ISWA 2010) are officially in Unicode right now...and we have the TrueType Fonts developed so technically the characters can be typed from left to right in a long row in Unicode right now...
....but that is not the way Deaf people write using those symbols - they write in visual clusters and in vertical columns - For example - let us imagine a sign that places the hand on top of the head - Deaf people actually place that hand symbol above or on top of the head symbol...but Unicode right now cannot do that...it will take adjustments to the Unicode to make that possible. It can definitely be done. We have already given them the proposal we feel will work. But the Unicode committees have to make the decision to allow this unusual way of writing.
Meanwhile, we already have functioning Sign Language Wikipedias on the Wikimedia Incubator, without Unicode, and we can type the edits directly on the web in full correctly-written SignWriting, and we have all the layout issue solved and we are reading in vertical columns...all this without Unicode.
So we have succeeded without Unicode, while we are waiting for the Unicode committees to complete the layout issues (smile ;-)
No matter what happens, I want to thank you all for this amazing opportunity of showing the world that we can indeed write Sign Language Wikipedias and I predict that articles will continue to be written in the Incubator and that is wonderful!
If you wish to discuss the technical issues further, the two technicians to write to are Steve Slevinski and Yair Rand.
Thank you once again -
Val ;-)
Valerie Sutton
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I'm not sure what is the work that Gerard is talking about. I don't know any sign language, but the rendering appears OK to me.
I do wonder about this (and I believe that I raised this already): when SignWriting enters Unicode, will it be possible to convert the content without trouble? A not-quite-Unicode project is already a problem. If it's at least forward-compatible with Unicode, I'll be less reluctant to support this.