Hebrew/Arabic in Jaguar

[The Bender]

Any of you guys out there with Jaguar noticed if Hebrew and Arabic support is there? I heard some rumblings from unverifiable sources that it will all be present and working on release. I would get more confident (and excited) if it were there already.

Specifically, up to 10.1.4, although support is there through Unicode (even for right-to-left text), no keyboard layouts are included and general support is left out. Hebrew email appears perfectly in Mail, but you can't write it, etc.

Thanks.:D

[crassusad44]

Hebrew is in the keyboard layout menu, but I have not tried it (my Hebrew skill are.... well, limited :p)

[tom@bluesky.org]

If you have a moment, Crassus, see if the Hebrew works. Check it in the keyboards menu, fire up TextEdit, go to the Flag menu and select Hebrew, then type some random keys. Main questions: Do Hebrew letters appear? Does the cursor stay at the left margin, pushing the letters out to the right?

Apple is notorious for putting stuff in the language menus which does not in fact function.

[oeyvind]

Yes Hebrew, Arabic and a lot more languages will be in Jaguar (more than Classic Mac OS support)...

[The Bender]

Originally posted by oeyvind
Yes Hebrew, Arabic and a lot more languages will be in Jaguar (more than Classic Mac OS support)...

I don't mean to be ungrateful, but I've seen plenty of posts like this. Ultimately it adds up to third-hand information and mangled rumors. Have you actually seen right-to-left languages in operation? Is the character set right? Is the rtl correct? Is cursor positioning working? Does rtl and ltr text in the same sentence work (e.g. one Hebrew word in a line of English)? Etc.

Thanks

[crassusad44]

I tried Arabic, Hebrew and Persian, and all work (show Arabic, Hebrew and Persian letters). But, as of now, letters are written from left to right. Not sure if its possible to change this in the DP, I could have missed it (maybe a checkbox or something). But anyways, it's there, and it's working.

:D

[crassusad44]

BTW, this image was cropped in Photoshop 1.0 running in Classic mode!!! Even the gaussian blurs was done in PS 1.0. How about that for classic support! :) :D :p

[Jays]

Originally posted by The Bender
... Hebrew email appears perfectly in Mail, but you can't write it, etc.


does Hebrew appear correct (right to left) for you in Mail?

I get it left to write, did not find anywhere the option to change directions, any tips.

by the way in Mozzilla mail and probably in Netscape 7 too hebrew works...perfect!

[The Bender]

Originally posted by Jays

I get it left to write, did not find anywhere the option to change directions, any tips.


Oops! My mistake. Just checked and as you say, it's backwards in Mail. In the Finder, however, it appears rtl. The problem is inputting it. If I take a file with a Hebrew name from the Win95 desktop in VPC, and drop it in the Finder, the name appears perfectly.
:eek:

[The Bender]

Originally posted by crassusad44
BTW, this image was cropped in Photoshop 1.0 running in Classic mode!!! Even the gaussian blurs was done in PS 1.0. How about that for classic support! :) :D :p

PS1... Oh, them were the days... Wait a moment while I dry my eyes.

I must say that I'm not too optimistic for the Hebrew, as it sounds like not much improvement since 10.0. Working rtl would be the real accomplishment.

Existence in the keyboard layout menu is a start though, and hopefully it demonstrates intent...

[tom@bluesky.org]

Thanks for the confirmation about the keyboards working! This is a first and most welcome after a lot of vague and unsubstantiated reports. I think the main stumbling block is still that Cocoa just does not do RTL. Perhaps they can get that (and associated connecting of glyphs) worked out by release time.

[Jays]

Originally posted by tom@bluesky.org
I think the main stumbling block is still that Cocoa just does not do RTL. Perhaps they can get that (and associated connecting of glyphs) worked out by release time.

Am I missimg something? as I said earlier in Mozzila and Netscape 7 preview (same thing really) you can write in Hebrew RTL in the mail, so it is possible in Cocoa, but the support has to be in the programs self.

[tom@bluesky.org]

Mozilla and Netscape are Carbon, not Cocoa. I believe at present it's not possible for a Cocoa app to support RTL. So you don't find it in TextEdit or OmniWeb. And certainly Apple will put it in TextEdit if at all possible.

As far as Carbon goes, you are correct. Carbon apps can be both Unicode-savvy and do RTL. That so few have these features is the fault of the authors (it takes a *lot* of work I understand).

[crassusad44]

Originally posted by The Bender


PS1... Oh, them were the days... Wait a moment while I dry my eyes.


:eek: ;) :p

[The Bender]

Originally posted by crassusad44


:eek: ;) :p

Waaa! Sniff! Sob!

:D :D :D :D :D

[firewire2001]

it is possible to type from right to left in text edit.. i dont remember off hand how to, but it is possible..

does anyone know how to make menus in hebrew?

[tom@bluesky.org]

I'd love to hear otherwise, but TextEdit does not have RTL capability in 10.1, and I haven't seen it demonstrated yet in Jaguar previews.

Not sure this will help, but some info on localizing X apps is at

http://developer.apple.com/intl/localization.html

[oeyvind]

Ok, as promised: a full listing of supported keyboard layout/input methods (http://www.oeyvind.org/board/zboard.php?id=MacOSX&no=155) in Jaguar, as of the DP release.

[tom@bluesky.org]

Thanks, very impressive, way beyond Apple's performance in this area heretofore. Lingo.pdf is unreadable for me however (error messages).

[oeyvind]

Originally posted by tom@bluesky.org
Thanks, very impressive, way beyond Apple's performance in this area heretofore. Lingo.pdf is unreadable for me however (error messages).

Can view it fine with Preview.app and also with Acrobat 5.0 now (some problem with Acrobat permission just now, should be fine with 4.0 too).

[tom@bluesky.org]

It just says "error, cannot decrypt." Probably because I was using Acrobat Reader 4.

[oeyvind]

Originally posted by tom@bluesky.org
It just says "error, cannot decrypt." Probably because I was using Acrobat Reader 4.

u might wanna redownload the pdf again... I have changed some Acrobat permission to Acrobat 4.0 based instead of 5.0 based permission.

[tom@bluesky.org]

Thanks, works fine with Acrobat 4 now. It's curious that the list omits the 4 Central European languages in 10.1, but this could result from not having the CE kit installed in your Classic.

Also the character palette is intriguing. I suspect it is something similar to UnicodeChecker, which lets you see and copy/paste all available characters on your machine.

[oeyvind]

Originally posted by tom@bluesky.org
Thanks, works fine with Acrobat 4 now. It's curious that the list omits the 4 Central European languages in 10.1, but this could result from not having the CE kit installed in your Classic.

Also the character palette is intriguing. I suspect it is something similar to UnicodeChecker, which lets you see and copy/paste all available characters on your machine.

which 4? I never ever have seen that on default Mac OS X 10.1 build. BTW, there's no Classic on almost all my install these days.

[tom@bluesky.org]

Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak. Along with Russian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian these keyboards only appear if you have the OS 9 kits installed (or something similar), and they were added starting with 10.1.0. The TIL is

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106484