Changing the Canute's BRF ASCII encoding

The Canute uses the The North American Braille ASCII Code (AKA Braille ASCII) when reading BRF files. This Braille code can be used for any six dot Braille code and language, and most transcription software can be set to output into this format, which is what we recommend for Canute users to do whenever possible.

This maps the following ASCII characters in BRF:

A1B'K2L@CIF/MSP\"E3H9O6R^DJG>NTQ,*5<-U8V.%[$+X!&;:4\\0Z7(_?W]#Y)=

... To the following Braille symbols:

⠀⠁⠂⠃⠄⠅⠆⠇⠈⠉⠊⠋⠌⠍⠎⠏⠐⠑⠒⠓⠔⠕⠖⠗⠘⠙⠚⠛⠜⠝⠞⠟⠠⠡⠢⠣⠤⠥⠦⠧⠨⠩⠪⠫⠬⠭⠮⠯⠰⠱⠲⠳⠴⠵⠶⠷⠸⠹⠺⠻⠼⠽⠾⠿

However if you have a lot of pre-transcribed books which use a different BRF encoding then it is possible to adjust the Canute's Open Sourced code to accomodate this. The source for the file in question can be found here, line 117:

https://github.com/Bristol-Braille/canute-ui/blob/master/ui/braille.py#L117

You will need to decide the encoding you wish to change it to. We recommend looking at the .dis table files in the LibLouis project. For two examples:

• The North American Braille ASCII Code (same as the default on in the Canute).

• The German Eurobraille Display Table, used in Germany for 6-dot Braille BRFs.

Be sure to only use a 6-dot code. If you, for example, wanted to change Canute to interpret BRF files as German 6-dot EuroBraille then you would need to order to letters in a single string according to the dot pattern in the Unicode Braille string above. This can be done manually or by writing a custom script.

Please note that changing that line will change how Canute interprets every BRF file. To make Canute interpret different sorts of BRF files as different Braille ASCII codes is a much larger job.

See Making changes to the Canute's software for how to load these changes onto the Canute itself.