See your name in Braille

• Download demo, source files, and pictures - 46.4 KB

Introduction

This article offers some JavaScript to display Braille in your web pages. It can be used to familiarize sighted people with the Braille system, not for real Braille transcription (that would be a much bigger project).

In its simplest form (Grade 1) Braille is just a different character set:

Displaying Braille using pictures and JavaScript

From the table above, we can easily display a Braille translation of any text by using one picture per character. It is even easier when we call each picture by the name of the character it represents.

The following quick and dirty JavaScript will do the trick.

function SimpleBraille(message) 
{ 
    var myHTML = ""; 
    for (var i=0; i<message.length; i++) 
    {
        if (message.charAt(i)==" ")
            myHTML += "<IMG  SRC=\"braillepix/sp.gif\">";
        else 
            myHTML += "<IMG SRC=\"braillepix/" + message.charAt(i).
                toLowerCase() + ".gif\">";
    } 
    return myHTML;
}

Improving the JavaScript

Of course, this was an over-simplification to demonstrate the way it works. Let's now make a few improvements the code.

There are a few extra rules we should add to our script

• Uppercases must be prefixed by a special Braille character
• Numbers are displayed using "a" for "1", "b" for "2"... prefixed with a special character
• Punctuation signs use more special characters

While we are at it, we can also optimize the code

• Let's add the "ALT" attribute in the generated "IMG" tags, to see the translation of each character on mouse-over.
• Let's use and array, push and join instead of string concatenation, so it will be much faster.

The improved JavaScript function is now much longer but will produce more accurate Braille.

function Braille(message) 
{ 
    var brailleArr = []; 
    var myChar, prevCharNum, inQuote

        function BrailleChar(bPix,bAlt) 
    {
        return ["<IMG HEIGHT=27 WIDTH=19 vspace=5 hspace=1 SRC=\"braillepix/", 
            bPix, ".gif\" ALT=\"", bAlt, "\">"].join("");
    }

    for (var i=0; i<message.length; i++) 
    {
        myChar = message.charAt(i);
        if ((myChar>="a") && (myChar<="z")) 
        {       // a to z

            brailleArr.push(BrailleChar(myChar, myChar));
            prevCharNum = false;            
        } else if((myChar>="A") && (myChar<="Z")) 
        {       // A to Z

            brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("cap", "Caps"));
            brailleArr.push(BrailleChar(myChar, myChar));            
            prevCharNum = false;         
        } else if((myChar>"0") && (myChar<="9")) 
        {
            if (!prevCharNum)
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("num", "Number"));
            brailleArr.push(BrailleChar(String.fromCharCode(myChar.
                charCodeAt(0) + 48), myChar)); 
            prevCharNum = true;            
        } else 
        {
            switch (myChar) 
            {
            case " ": 
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("sp", "Space"));
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "0":
                if (!prevCharNum)
                    brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("num", "Number")); 
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("j", "0"));      
                prevCharNum = true;
                break;
            case "\n":
                brailleArr.push("<br><br>");
                nbCharsInLine = -1;
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case ".":
                if (prevCharNum)
                    brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("dec", ".")); 
                else
                    brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("period", "."));  
                break;
            case "$":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("period", "$"));
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "%":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("col", "%"));
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("p", ""));
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
                case "'":
                    brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("qs", "'")); 
                    prevCharNum = false;
                    break;
            case ",":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("comma", ","));
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "?":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("qu", "?")); 
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "(":
            case ")":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("par", "parenthesis")); 
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "*":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("ast", "*"));
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("ast", "*")); 
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
                case "//":
                    brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("sla", "//")); 
                    prevCharNum = false;
                    break;
            case "!":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("ex", "!")); 
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
                case "'": 
                    if (inQuote)
                        brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("qc", "Close Quote")); 
                    else
                        brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("qo", "Open Quote"));  
                    inQuote = !inQuote;
                    prevCharNum = false;
                    break;
            case ":":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("col", ":"));
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case ";":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("sc", ";")); 
                prevCharNum = false;
                break;
            case "[":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("cap", "["));
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("par", ""));
                break;
            case "]":
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("par", "]"));
                brailleArr.push(BrailleChar("qs", "")); 
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    return brailleArr.join("");
}

I'm not a Braille expert, but I know there are other rules that could be added. There is still room for improvement.

Using the code

The JavaScript is rather straight forward and simple enough to work on any browser. What took a while was making the pictures of all the different Braille characters, but don't worry these are included in the download, and they even come in three different flavors. Simply change the directory name in the JavaScript to use the set of pictures you prefer.

Black

3D

Big

Using the Braille function, we can display the classic "Hello World" as follow:

document.write(Braille("Hello World"));

Otherwise, you may use it to show your users how their name looks like in Braille.

Try this code live at EvolUtility

Eventually, if you really want to learn Braille, I recommend starting with the book Braille for the Sighted from Schneider, and Kathy Kifer. Enjoy.