Sao Mai Braille 25.5 Release Announcement

We are pleased to officially announce the release of Sao Mai Braille (SMB) version 25.5.

Highlights of the SMB 25.5 release include: changes and new options for handling document translation formatting; settings for header and footer content on the first page as well as on odd and even pages; a new configuration page for Braille formatting of lists (supporting the BANA style and allowing customization); an update to LibLouis 3.33 with four new translation tables; and improved support for opening, saving, reading, and translating mathematical expressions in DOCX files.

As usual, our BungSang music translation engine has also been updated with many improvements and new features, such as: more playback options in navigation mode (play by staff, by part, or all parts); transposition; handling effects like articulation, dynamics, ornamentation, pedals, slurs/ties, etc.; tempo management and metronome control; and enhanced algorithms for processing complex cases such as doubling, repeats, partial measures, and nested slurs.

View and download from the main page of Sao Mai Braille.

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Below are the details of the new features and improvements in this release.

Formatting Changes for Translated Document

This is an important change in the 25.5 release regarding format handling when translating from print to Braille. The old Braille document format had several limitations, such as: not fully retaining font style information; not supporting the management of embedded objects (images, music scores, math expressions, data tables, and tables of contents); and lacking the ability to back-translate while preserving formatting. The new document format translation option addresses these limitations.

This new format works almost in sync with the print version. Styles such as headings or font attributes are not yet rendered in Braille. Therefore, after translating with this new function using the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut (or by choosing “Translate with Print Styles” from the Tools menu), you still need to select “View as BRF” from the View menu or press F8 to view the fully formatted Braille version.

Meanwhile, for the default translation function, when pressing Ctrl+T to convert from print to Braille, all embedded objects and font styles are translated and formatted into plain Braille only. This means it will not retain any font styles or embedded objects from the original print document.

However, after translating into this plain Braille format, you can still work similarly to the new translation with print styles option mentioned above - for example, by applying styles, inserting music scores, math expressions, etc.

Using the same translation commands, you can also back-translate from Braille to print.

Here are a few notes about the changes in the default translation function (Ctrl+T) and the new translation with print styles function (Ctrl+Alt+T).

Math equations and music scores:

• These are translated into plain Braille text during conversion or insertion. The original embedded math and music objects are hidden by default. Select “Math, music objects” from the View menu to display them.
• You can interact with these objects just like in the print document window. For example, at the object’s location, press Alt+Enter to open the math expression edit or the score info dialog; or, press Shift+F5 to read it in navigation mode.

Images:

• If “Keep original images” is selected in the Tactile Image settings page, images will be retained when translating the document into Braille. If not selected, the program will skip images during the translation.
• The options Convert all images to tactile graphics and Translate image descriptions only apply when translating to plain Braille document.

Header and Footer

A new feature has been added to allow inputting content in the header and footer for the first page, as well as for odd and even pages. The following explanation uses "header" as an example, but the same applies to the footer.

There are three types of headers and footers (just call header for short): normal header (also referred to as the odd page header), even page header, and first page header.

When you select "Header and Footer" from the View menu, the normal header (odd page header) is displayed and appears the same on all pages.

When you enable the "First Page Header, Footer" option (disabled by default), the normal header on page 1 is hidden and replaced by the first page header. This header may be empty and requires you to enter content. Headers on page 2 and beyond will still use the normal header, meaning the header on the first page differs from the others.

When you enable the "Even Page Header, Footer" option (also disabled by default), the normal header on even-numbered pages is hidden and replaced with the even page header, which may also be empty and require content input. This allows different headers on even and odd pages.

If you disable the "First Page Header, Footer" or "Even Page Header, Footer" options, the system will revert to using the normal header for all pages.

Screen readers will correctly announce the header type when you press F2 to move to the header or footer section.

When translating between Braille and print document, all of these header types are preserved.

Braille List Style Formatting

A new settings page has been added for configuring Braille list formatting rules, located under Options dialogue → Styles → List. This page includes the following customization options:

• List Type: Choose between bullet (unordered) or numbered (ordered) lists.
• List Style: Select Custom to manually configure the formatting options for each list level. If BANA is selected, the list levels will be automatically set based on the following margin formatting rules:
  For a single level: use margins at level 1–3.
  For two levels: level 1–5 and 3–5.
  For three levels: level 1–7, 3–7, and 5–7.
  And so on... It supports up to 6 levels.
• Insert Blank Line Before: When selected, a blank line will be inserted between the first list item and the preceding text.
• Insert Blank Line After: When selected, a blank line will be inserted between the last list item and the following text.
• List Level: This option appears only when the list style is set to Custom. It displays all 6 levels. Select a level and configure its Braille formatting rules in the subsequent tabs.
  By default, level 1 uses a 3–1 margin, level 2 uses 5–1, level 3 uses 7–1, and so on.
  • First-line indent: Specifies the number of spaces from the left margin for the first line of a list item.
  • Left indent: Specifies the number of spaces from the left margin for the runover lines of a list item.
  • Right indent: Specifies the number of spaces between the text and the right margin for all lines of a list item.
  • Beginning symbol: Defines the Braille dot pattern used as an opening indicator at the start of a list item.
  • Ending symbol: Defines the Braille dot pattern used as a closing indicator at the end of a list item.

Music

In addition to various improvements and bug fixes for Braille translation, new features of the Music Navigation Mode are the highlights of this release.

New features in music nav mode:

To activate Music nav Mode, at the inserted score, select "Navigation Mode" from the View menu or press Shift+F5.

• Playback while navigating the score: Braille content, descriptive text, and MIDI sound of notes are played and shown at the same time. Users can toggle MIDI playback and note description text directly in the navigation window.
• Multi-instrument playback: Handles simultaneous playback of multiple instruments, using individual sound settings for each part.
• Supported transposing according to the notation in the score.
• Enhanced playback of musical effects: Now supports various system and note-level effects, including tempo, dynamics, hairpins, pedal, slurs, ties, grace notes, trills, turns, tremolos, arpeggios, accents, tenuto, staccato, spiccato, and staccatissimo.
• Playback range selection: Choose to play the current staff, part, or all parts. Navigate to the "Play range" section in the navigation window to select the desired range.
• Next to the "Play range" option is a checkbox to enable or disable the metronome.
• By default, playback follows the tempo markings in the score. If no tempo markings, the tempo of 120 BPM is used.
  To set custom tempo: Uncheck "Default tempo" and next tab is the “Tempo (BMP)”. Choose the desired tempo. If the score contains multiple tempo changes, SMB will adjust custom playback speed accordingly.
• MIDI volume control: To adjust the program’s MIDI volume.
• Keyboard shortcuts for playback: Ctrl+Space: Play from the current position to the end.
  Space: Resume, replay the selected item, pause, or continue playback.
• New navigation commands: Ctrl+Up/Down Arrow: Move to the previous or next parallel.
  Alt+Up/Down Arrow: Move to the previous or next voice within the current staff.
• Supported additional “go to” options: line, page, and parallel. Press Ctrl+G or navigate to "Go to", select an option, then in the next tab, enter a number and press Enter.
• New Text Output Options and improvements in Navigation Mode (change the settings in Options dialogue -> Music Braille -> Navigation mode):
  • Report notes in group as: Choose between true values (default) or eighth note (Braille representation). For example, in a group of four 16th notes, the first note will be written in 16^th-note shape, while the remaining three will be written as eighth-note shape in Braille.
  • Report accidentals as: "Choose Sounding": to announce sharp/flat based on actual playback pitch. While "Written Braille": will announce sharp/flat only when marked in the Braille score.
  • Report beat position: Enables reporting of a note’s beat position within the measure.
  • Report chord intervals as: If set to note names, interval doubling in Braille translation is not applied.
  • Additionally, various improvements to text reading have been made, including: Announcing voice changes during navigation, automatically added rests, ties and doublings.
• For Braille output in Navigation Mode, most music translation settings in the Options are applied.

Here's a quick video showing off some cool new features in music navigation mode:

Improvements and New Features in the Music Translation Module

Mainly focused on improving and fixing several bugs found in large scores with complex notation styles.

• Fixed the issue of incorrect rhythm repetition in some cases of 8th-time signatures, missing dot 3 after the first shorter partial repeat sign when two repeated sections are separated by a hairpin, and improved the algorithm for partial repeat.
• Fixed the issue of missing tempo markings in Orchestra mode when other markings appear at the same time.
• Improved conditions and algorithms for detecting slurs and ties, especially in cases of grace slurs, regular slurs, and ties that span across voices and staves.
• Fixed the issue of missing key signature at the start of a new parallel in Orchestra mode.
• Improved doubling conditions for articulation marks in Orchestra and Chamber modes.
• Improved the algorithm for handling simultaneous occurrences of part-measure in-accord, repeat, and doubling.
• Added support for aligning notes in the remaining bars of a parallel, not just the first bar.
• Improved the octave restating of the first note in a bar when the previous bar has part-measure in-accord.
• Enhanced the algorithm for detecting both interval doubling and repetition when they appear simultaneously.
• Fixed the incorrect alignment of bar number in Chamber mode.
• Fixed the issue where the start mark of a long slur ⠉⠉ was not hidden, when the Show slur marking option was disabled.
• Used bracket slur to indicate the passage with only note slur but no lyric slur.
• Updated the algorithm for translating full lyric phrase with punctuation in MBC format, to avoid splitting them into small items that could result in incorrect Braille output.
• Fixed the issue where default lyrics for verse 1 were translated using the Vietnamese Braille table.
• Revised the center alignment function for text elements such as the title, author name, tempo markings, etc., ensuring at least three spaces are left at both margins before centering.
• Added the line “Auto-transcribed by Sao Mai Braille software” to the end of title info page. With this, we hope that you would help spread word about SMB music translation tool to more users. You can disable this credit message in the Show/hide symbol list in the music transcription settings page of the Options dialog.
• Fixed the error of displaying incorrect Braille codes at the beginning of a continuation line when translating using the line-over-line format.
• Fixed the bug with enabling/disabling the option to use only tie for both slur and tie.

Other Improvements and New Features

• Braille Translation for text: Updated to LibLouis 3.33. Added four new translation tables (Coptic, Portuguese 6-dot computer Braille, Telugu and Transliterated with compact diacritics), fixed bugs, and improved many translation rules for language tables such as Dutch, Norwegian, English UEB, and Hungarian.
• Math: Fixed font style issues when opening/saving DOCX files containing math expressions. Additionally, updated to MathCAT 0.68, which includes many improvements in reading and translating math expressions.
• New in GoTo dialogue: Added support for quickly jumping to specific elements in the document, including tables, math expressions, images, and music scores.
  Press Ctrl+G to open the Go To dialog, press Shift+Tab to move to the element list and select the desired element, then press Tab to enter the ordered number of the element in the document, and press Enter to go to it.
• Find and Replace Support for images, math expressions, and music scores:
  • Find: Press Ctrl+F to open the find dialog. By default, the cursor is placed in the text input field. Press Shift+Tab to choose an element type such as image, equation, or music score, then press Enter to search. Press Esc to exit the dialog, F3 to find the next result, or Shift+F3 to find the previous one.
  • Find and Replace: Press Ctrl+H to open the Find and Replace dialog. By default, it searches and replaces text. Press Shift+Tab to select the element type (image, equation, or music score), then Tab to enter the replacement content.
    For example, to quickly delete all images in the document: select Image as the element, leave the replacement field empty, and click the Replace All button.
• Fixed an issue with invalid date formatting that could cause the program to crash.
• Added support for the "Danish 1993" ASCII display Braille code.
• Enabled saving documents with math equations to EPUB format using the third-party Pandoc tool. To use the EPUB file type, download the Pandoc tool from the Third-party Apps settings page in the Options dialog.
• Improved the formatted text copy-and-paste function from Microsoft Word. Additionally, you can press Ctrl+Shift+V or select Paste Special from the Edit menu for more paste options.
• When changing the music profile, options in the music settings pages are now correctly updated and loaded.
• Prevented the "list index out of bounds" error from appearing when the program is processing a task but receives other command key inputs.
• Remove the Interface language menu item from the Tools menu. To change the interface language, simply open the Options dialog, select a language from the UI language list, and click OK to save.
• Updated JAWS script and NVDA add-on. JAWS users should update to the new JAWS script by going to the Tools menu -> Install add-on and selecting JAWS script.