InScribe 2004: Description: Hieroglyph input palettes
Overview
InScribe provides two approaches to entering Egyptian in Hieroglyphs. The first, outlined here, uses palettes of signs that act like menus
to select signs. This visual approach is meant to be more sympathetic to the written language than use of modern coding and transliteration schemes.
The second approach works by typing codes for signs based on the Gardiner sign list codings (A1 etc.),
See <<link to transliteration discussion>>.
It should be noted that although entering a text from scratch can be unavoidable, the InScribe 2004 features for cut/copy/paste makes it easy
to build a repertoire of texts and vocabulary and use these to construct a document. With practise, drag and drop with the mouse can be a very fluid
means of working. See <<link to screen shots>>.
Input from Gardiner Menu
Signs are arranged in 26 categories as given in 'Egyptian Grammar'. Click on one of these signs to display a palette of signs in this category.
For example, click on 
to choose from the signs in category A (Man and his Occupations).
InScribe 2004 palettes show the Gardiner code and a phonetic association where applicable. These phonetic associations include phonograms
(monoliteral, biliteral or triliteral) highlighted in blue. Ideograms are highlighted in red.
Input from Shape Menu
New for InScribe 2004. An addition to the Gardiner Menu, signs are arranged in 26 categories according to shape, size and appearance.
This example shows small rounded signs. The shape approach is particulary useful for those signs that are not easily recognizable as to which
category they belong to.
Input from Alphabet/Phonetic Menu
The 'Alphabet palette' allows entry of the 25 monoliteral phonograms with a single mouse click. New for InScribe 2004. Three variants for 'y',
'w' and 'm' are given. Right click on a sign yields a menu of corresponding phonograms and ideograms, yielding a point and click phonetic oriented
interface. See Phonetics for information on phonograms and ideograms.