𓏞ΙΕΡΟΓΛΥΦΩ — Help Guide

A compact reference for building, editing, and exporting hieroglyphic compositions. The toolbar sits at the bottom; the character/dictionary panel is on the right; the canvas fills everything else.

1. Placing glyphs on the canvas

• Drag & drop any glyph from the character list on the right onto the canvas — it snaps to the nearest grid point.
• Search by Gardiner code or name in the top field of the right panel.
• Browse by Gardiner category from the or A, B, C.. dropdown.
• Each placed glyph also appears in the Gardiner: strip above the canvas, building a running transliteration.

2. Pasting a series (MdC)

• The small Paste series box (lower-left, above the toolbar) accepts either:
  • Gardiner codes separated by -, space or comma — e.g. A1-D21-N35.
  • A run of raw hieroglyph characters — e.g. 𓂀𓏏𓊵 — pasted from any text.
  • A mix of the two.
• Press Enter or click Add Glyphs to drop the whole sequence onto the canvas in order.

Spatial layout (Manuel de Codage)

• Choose Individual signs in the dialog to lay glyphs out in 2D the way textbooks and JSesh do. (Single text run stays linear and can't show stacking; spatial operators auto-switch to the layout engine.)
• Operators (tightest → loosest):
  • * — place side by side, e.g. D21*X1
  • : — stack one over another, e.g. M17:X1
  • - — separate cadrats (groups) along the line
  • ( ) — group, e.g. (M17:X1)*N35
• Spacing & breaks: a space or _ = word gap, a double space or __ = sentence gap, ! = new line, !! = page/section break.
• Enclosures: <S … >S serekh (paneled façade), <H … >H hwt (enclosure), <F … >F frame — e.g. <S-G5>S for the Horus-name serekh. (Royal-name cartouches are made with the toolbar tool, not here.)
• Example: <S-G5>S-F-R8 draws a serekh with the falcon, then the viper and the flag on the same baseline.

3. Toolbar (bottom of the screen)

4. Selecting and moving objects

• Select: click a glyph or shape. Drag to move; drag a corner to scale; drag the top handle to rotate.
• Multi-select: Shift + click, or marquee-drag an empty area.
• Fine move: select, then use arrow keys (hold Shift for 1px steps).
• Edit text: double-click a text object.
• Pan canvas: hold Alt and drag.
• Zoom: mouse wheel over the canvas.

5. Keyboard shortcuts

Alignment keys also operate on multi-selections.

6. Custom text and transliteration

• Click ⌨ to open the text dialog.
• The dialog includes special-character keys for Egyptological transliteration (ꜣ ꜥ ḥ ḫ ẖ š ḳ ṯ ḏ) and a Coptic row.
• Set the font size before inserting, or double-click the text on the canvas to edit it later.

7. Dictionary search

• Click Upload Dictionary and choose your mazzon-dictionary.txt file.
• Search by Gardiner codes separated by spaces (e.g. A1 Z2) or by transliteration (e.g. rHty).
• Matches are highlighted; non-ASCII text is enlarged for readability.
• Resize results: drag the small horizontal handle just below the character list to grow or shrink the results panel.
• Drag to canvas: highlight glyphs in a result (e.g. 𓀀𓁐𓏥) and drag the selection onto the canvas — they're placed as a bottom-aligned row.

8. File menu (≡) — save, load, export, wiki

The ≡ button on the right side of the toolbar opens a single menu:

• Save as JSON: full workspace snapshot (canvas + Gardiner strip).
• Save as PDF: rasterized export (the PDF library loads lazily on first click).
• Open JSON…: load a previously saved workspace.
• Gardiner signs (Wiki): opens the Wikipedia sign list in a new tab.
• Right-click the canvas to use the browser's native save / copy on the rendered image.

9. Background image

• BG uploads a reference image behind the canvas.
• BG α sets its opacity (0–100%).
• Pan offsets reset when the background is hidden or replaced.

10. Learn more

The Gardiner signs (Wiki) entry in the ≡ menu opens the Gardiner sign list on Wikipedia — a useful reference for codes, categories, and meanings.