Hello everyone, I've just been informed that my friend Saber has told you all about my project. He did this with the best of intentions but without my knowledge. Believe me, I did not want to get you people who are working so hard on font development and unicode problems to be bothered with my small project (which has nothing to do with standardization of anything), but now that he has I'd better explain because all of you who responded with complaints are right to have done so! (Especially about the passwd!)
Anyhow, my project which I started 6 months ago is to make a web-based language learning tool for foreigners to learn Persian. Basically there will be a short story written in a nice, clear Persian font, with an option that the lines of the text will expand and a .jpg of each line will appear underneath the line in font which will be a scanned image of the line above only in regular, everyday handwriting of various people. Almost all the words will have an <acronym> html tag whereby a yellow box with the word's English translation will appear if you let your mouse hover. Each line of the text will be numbered and if you click on the number a new window will appear with "footnotes" for the vocabulary/grammar/cultural notes of things which occur in that line. There will also be a sound file with a native speaker reading the text. While a lot of you who are in Iran may think this is all very easy, guess again! My target users can not be expected to have Flash and all the latest Microsoft software which is so easily available in Iran. Even to make them download a Persian font will be a problem. Also there is a sizeable population trying to avoid all Microsoft products so I need to make my site viewable on various browsers and computers. Keeping it simple appears to be very hard! It took me so many months just to find out how to type a simple document in Persian. Now the remaining tasks are looking harder and harder, that's why my friend Saber suggested he enlist the help of various "farsi" related Yahoo group members. After initial enthusiasm, no one has stepped forward to help, either with computer related problems nor with Persian language help. I think that's why he's now bothered all of you. I had no intention of sending out a global call for help! Just thought it would be a few of us, that's why I had to put the password. (After almost going mad trying to seek information on how to type a Word doc in Persian, I thought I'd better share that info and so posted a Persian Word FAQ on my webpage but I didn't really want those users looking at all my project docs which are under construction. Hence the password.) If you've read all this and still are interested, you can take a look: http://students.washington.edu/irina/ Click on "Yek Ruz...." The logon and password are both "fred". That would be great if someone with computer skills could volunteer to work on any specific task. Warning: the site is a mess, truly under contstruction. Anyhow, you'll get an idea of what we're doing. Thanks for your time and interest if you read this, -Connie (and Saber) _______________________________________________ FarsiWeb mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.sharif.edu/mailman/listinfo/farsiweb
