As the new features in 2.11.5 are somehow technical, I felt the need to write an extensive documentation for them. To download the new version, please go to the release page.

New sign categories

I have added, both in the menus and in the hieroglyphic palette, entries for "Low broad/tall narrow/low narrow" signs. The signs in those entries are only those of Gardiner's grammar, but I think it will be helpful anyway.

Changes in shading

The menu entry in Text Manipulation/Shading can now apply to a selection. That is, you can shade the top part of all groups in a selection in one operation (previously, you had to shade each group individually).

More, for people who type texts with lots of lacunas, I have added a popup menu. If you press the "#" key on your keyboard, this menu will appear. You can navigate in it with the keyboard or select entries by a specific letter.

Here is an example. I have selected a part of the text and pressed "#". The popup appears:

Partial shading popup

Now I can select the shading I need by various means (it depends on your computer system). For instance, I can type "3", move in the menu with the keyboard arrows or select the menu item with the mouse. Then, the whole selected text is shaded:

Partial shading applied

Advanced "copy" menu

Normally, in JSesh, you chose the format you want for copy/paste in the preferences menu. But in some cases, you might want to copy your text in a specific format which is not the one you chose. Instead of going back to the preferences, you can use the "Copy As" menu. It allows you to copy the selected text in PDF, RTF or Bitmap.

Possibility to paste hieroglyphic back text to JSesh

Principles and problems

(I'm sorry, this part is a bit technical. If someone is able to write the same explanations in a clearer way, it would be a welcome contribution to JSesh's site)

On windows (and on Mac OS prior to Mac OS X), there is a feature called "Object linking and embedding", wich is more or less an intelligent cut and paste. You copy/paste a document from your hieroglyphic editor into Word, and then if you double click on the pasted picture, it will open the hieroglyphic editor, so that you can change the text.

This is not possible with JSesh, as this kind of capabilities are very system-specific (If you really need it, I understand that it's well supported in Inscribe). However version 2.11 of JSesh provides a poor man's version. Basically the trick (also used in a few other hieroglyphic editors, like MacScribe) is to use the comment field available in some picture formats (like PDF or EMF), and to put the manuel de codage text in this comment field. When the picture is pasted into JSesh, one can simply extract the code.

Of course, this is more or less automatic. But I needed to explain it, because it depends on a number of factors:

the picture format must support comments, and I need to write the corresponding code. This is currently done only for EMF and PDF.
the word processor must accept the pasted picture "as is", and not modify it. Modifications usually suppress the comment. For instance, on a Mac, you can paste a PDF picture in MS/Word 2008. But Word will (I guess) transform the picture into its own format, and lose the comment in the process.

All those explanations to tell you that this system won't function with all word processors... and especially not with MS/Word (at least not with Word 2008 on a mac). I'm sorry for that.

Now for the possible solutions

Mellel/Nissus writer and PDF.

If you use Mellel or Nissus writer, and if you configure your cut and paste option to use the PDF format ), you will be able to paste back your hieroglyphs into JSesh.

Simply select the hieroglyphs in your text processor (e.g. Mellel) and copy them... Copying from Mellel

Then go to JSesh, and select File/Import/Import from Pasted PDF.

Importing PDF

The result will replace your current JSesh document: PDF import result

NeoOffice (Openoffice) and RTF text

This chapter describes manipulations made on a macintosh using Neooffice as word processor. It works also with Openoffice on Windows and Linux (but it seems to fail with Openoffice 3.1.1 on Mac).

If you configure your cut and paste option to use the RTF format and if you chose EMF as the picture format (see the cut and paste documentation), you will be able to paste back your hieroglyphs into JSesh.

First, you must select "EMF" as the copy format to use.

Copy preferences

Text pasted in EMF in Neooffice can then be pasted back in JSesh:

Copying RTF

Importing RTF

Imported RTF text

Now, there is a little problem. We want Neooffice to send RTF text (with the picture embedded in it). This won't happen if you directly select the picture: Bad selection in Neooffice

Note that in the "good" selection, the picture is outlined in black.

The direct selection of a picture will result in an (innocuitous) error message: Bad selection error message

Now, the correct way to select the picture is to click in front of it in the text and to drag with the mouse. Alternatively (and with less dexterity), you can select the picture by moving the text cursor in front of it and then pressing "shift" and one of the keyboard arrows (it's way simpler to do it than to describe it).

Note that you can select more than one picture: Multiple copies