Thank you for replying.
I have found on the following web page a smaller display of the image for which
Jon provided a link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code
Clicking on it leads to the following page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Extreme_QR_code_to_Wikipedia_mobile_page.png
>From there, there is a link to the page of the author of the image and from
>there a link to the following website.
http://qrc-designer.com/
Upon thinking about what I have learned as a result of studying Jon's post and
studying the above website I have come to the conclusion that it might well be
a better approach to use a QR code that encodes one Unicode character and that
has a glyph of that Unicode character in the middle, though not going over the
vertical clock pulses in the manner that the extreme example does.
Sometime ago I produced some pdfs. They are available from within two forum
post.
a_simulation_about_an_idea_that_would_use_qr_codes.pdf
http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?p=16692#p16692
experimental_table_top_for_telephoning_1200_by_800.pdf
http://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?p=17393#p17393
> What way is this meant to be better?
Oh, it was never intended to be better than QR codes. I wondered if it would be
possible to have images that could be read by both humans and computers.
At the time, before reading your reply and then reading the website that I
mentioned above, I had thought that adding an image of the glyph of a Unicode
character on top of a QR code might be unwise.
So, the two wonderings that I included in my original post about my idea can
now be applied instead to the idea of a QR code that encodes one Unicode
character and that has a glyph of that Unicode character in the middle.
quote
I am wondering whether the idea could have practical application for entering
some characters that are not available on keyboards.
I am wondering whether the idea could have practical application for being able
to enter characters without pressing keys, for example if someone is travelling
without a keyboard or if someone is unable to press keys.
end quote
Thus far I have thought of the following ideas.
1. A telephone table. Unlike the design in the pdf there would be just a row of
a QR codes that each encode one Unicode character and that each have a glyph of
that Unicode character in the middle and no separate row of printed digits.
2. A yellow safety jacket with the same codes as on a telephone table printed
down the front of the left arm, so that a person outside on a cold day could
make a telephone call without needing to take his or her gloves off.
A problem that would need to be solved would be how to cope with a sequence of
two identical digits. I have suggested using an ampersand so that that would be
used by an app gathering information from the reading of a sequence of QR codes
so as to know that a sequence of two identical digits was not a double reading
of one intended digit.
However, if one was trying, in a printed paper keyboard substitute application,
to enter codes for characters in general, then an ampersand would not do as one
might want to enter an ampersand.
Is that the best way to do it or have I misunderstood the problem?
3. A Z-card with many QR codes that each encode one Unicode character and that
each have a glyph of that Unicode character in the middle printed upon the
paper sheet. With a mobile telephone that has a suitable camera and app this
could be used as an alternative to a keyboard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-CARD
4. Would the idea be of use for producing Unicode code charts, not to replace
the existing code charts, but as an additional facility, so that rarer
characters could easily be entered into a computer system by scanning the
desired QR code with a mobile telephone that has a suitable camera and app?
William Overington
8 April 2013
