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Re: Hebrew support (was information)



> free serious application using Motif that we are interested in is
> Netscape/Mozilla, and there the internationalization issues are 
> already being covered (albeit slowly and not in time for Netscape 
> 5.0). For Linux GTk is the way to go.

I don't think Netscape will ever support RTL texts and keyboard. At least
not by Netscape Communications' hands. UNIX version still cannot handle
russian properly, though russian market is not less than Hebrew, at least,
and it's _really_ simple to get it working, if you just decide to do it
right. Netscape seems to be more interested in new widgetry and various
"new technologies" than in boring process of getting international support
work right.

> 1. Get the Unicode book.

I have the book, so if anyone is reluctant to spend whole $60 or how much
is it - I may lend it for a short time or make copies of relevant pages.
Hope it won't be a crime too big.

> 2. Implement the BiDi algorithm very clearly in high level scripting
>    language with strong string processing, e.g. perl. The result
>    should be a function given a Unicode string with implicit and
>    explicit BiDi rules outputs a visual string.

I tried it - in perl. It is almost working. The problem is that algorithm
in the book covers much more than one needs for simple logical->visual
conversion (it covers also Arabic, etc.), and also is a bit too general
(e.g., it's not exactly defined what is delimiter, number delimiter,
etc.). I've brought my script to the level where it successfully converts
most texts I tried (former Word documents - with real-life hebrew texts),
and then stopped due to lack of time.

> 3. Translate the BiDi algorithm into a C-library.

AFAIU, displaying BIDI texts is much more than simple Logical<->Visual
conversion. You have to make hooks to change directionality inside the
string, to mark texts with certain directionality explicitly (not that I
know how one does it... no time for it) and many other things.

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