PT Registry: list of scripts not alphabetical

Question

When registering a project in the Registry, under language I chose Advanced, and then tried to choose a script. I was surprised that the list is not in alphabetical order (See screenshot, below). Is there a reason for this?

On closer examination, much of the list is alphabetical, and the items that seem out of place appear to be sorted by the second word (or another word) in the name of the script. Still, I think that makes it much harder to find the script you want, particularly since there is not way to search the list. Could the list be made searchable?

(What I was trying to do: The language in question was Persian, aka Farsi, which uses the Arabic alphabet. But because Persian adds a number of letters to that alphabet, the script is often know as Perso-Arabic, and I was trying to find whether that name was in the list.)

Screenshot 2019-02-06 23.15.56.png703×643 22.7 KB

Answer 1

I agree that it should be sorted alphabetically. I’ll fix this in a future update.

wdavidhj:

BTW, are the designers of the PT Registry interface and the developers of the Paratext software the same people, or are they two completely different teams? If different, do the Registry people read this site? If not, how do we give feedback to them

They are different developers (but they do talk to each other).

I’m the developer for the PT Registry, so I hope that answers your question.

Answer 2

The scripts in your list seem to be in alphabetical order by the
4-character script name, for example:

Hira=Hirgana

Hluw=Anatolian Hierroglyphs

Hmng=Pahawh Hmong

I agree that this may not be the best presentation.

anon806807 

Comments

anon806807:

The scripts in your list seem to be in alphabetical order by the
4-character script name, for example:

… which is really unhelpful, since we can’t see the four-character name!

Could this be changed? – my preference would be for it to be ordered by the full name, since that’s what’s in most people’s minds when they’re looking for a script.

But making the list searchable would be better yet: I mean a proper search, one where you can type in part of the four letter code, or any part of the name (for a good example, see how XE handles searching for one of the world’s 180 currencies.)

BTW, are the designers of the PT Registry interface and the developers of the Paratext software the same people, or are they two completely different teams? If different, do the Registry people read this site? If not, how do we give feedback to them

Answer 3

Me thinks it could be
alphabetical by short name while displaying the long name in
the list.

Answer 4

(What I was trying to do: The language in question was Persian, aka Farsi, which uses the Arabic alphabet. But because Persian adds a number of letters to that alphabet, the script is often know as Perso-Arabic, and I was trying to find whether that name was in the list.)

We do not consider “Perso-Arabic” a different script from “[Arab] Arabic”. This is the same as for Latin script. We might say it is “Extended Latin” but it is still “[Latn] Latin”. So, you should just choose Arabic.

Comments

Lorna:

We do not consider “Perso-Arabic” a different script from “[Arab] Arabic”.

Sure. But my post was really about this: if you don’t know whether it has a separate listing or not, you want to be able to quickly discover that, and the fact that this relatively long list can’t be searched means that’s not straightforward.