Re: [SMW-devel] RTL i18n

[Temlakos <tem...@gm...>]

Markus:

I've seen a Browse page on my Hebrew site. Yes, it does reverse 
direction. Of course, that's not a complete test, because thus far I 
haven't even defined a property in it, much less annotated any value for 
a property.

Very well, then: I feel confident now that I should be able to test 
certain property definitions within a week. Shall I report my findings 
to this list? Or to you in private? Or shall I open a Bug in MediaZilla 
if anything goes wrong?

Temlakos

Markus Krötzsch wrote:
> On Freitag, 2. Oktober 2009, Temlakos wrote:
>   
>> Gentlemen:
>>
>> I might be asking something that I should already know, but I don't
>> think so.
>>
>> Is SMW even ready to support a RTL language as effectively as it does
>> with LTR?
>>
>> I've just visited the SMW Community Wiki. I have found /two/ wikis thus
>> far that are even /announced/ with Hebrew support (one ancient, one
>> modern). I saw /one other/ that had Arabic support.
>>
>> Now here's the question: Do any of those wikis handle custom linear data
>> types? Has anyone even /attempted/ to declare a custom linear data type
>> in Hebrew or Arabic?
>>     
>
> Well, I haven't. I don't speak either. If nobody tried it yet, my conclusion 
> would be that there is no pressing demand for it.
>
>   
>> It just occurred to me as I sought to complete the internationalization
>> for Hebrew, to handle dates--and note that as of SMW 1.4.3, the Hebrew
>> file did not even have a date formats file or a months or "monthsshort"
>> array. I have a version ready to test--but then it hit me:
>> SMW_DV_Time.php has routines that are supposed to put the "BC" or "BCE"
>> symbol to the /right/ of the date on output. For an RTL language, that
>> symbol belongs on the /left/.
>>     
>
> That could be one point that is relevant. I have no idea where "BC" is 
> supposed to go in Hebrew. Maybe someone who speaks the language can help.
>
>   
>> So now I'm asking: what /is/ the current status of RTL support in SMW?
>> How does one annotate a linear value in Hebrew or Arabic? Does one put
>> the unit to the right, or the left? It seems to me that the unit belongs
>> on the left.
>>     
>
> We have usually taken RTL into account when designing UIs. For example, the 
> Factbox and Special:Browse UIs change directions in RTL languages. For 
> strings, we usually keep the order: when processing strings internally, there 
> is no question of "left" or "right" but only of "beginning of the string" and 
> "end of the string". Units of measurement are expected after the end, i.e. on 
> the left in RTL languages.
>
> As far as I see, most of the support you ask for below is already built into 
> SMW and MediaWiki, and I do not see any reworking of code being required here. 
> Whether or not a language is RTL is already defined in MediaWiki and SMW 
> respects this setting. So we do not need new configuration settings. If there 
> are particular features for which RTL needs some updates, please let us know 
> and we will have a look.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Markus
>
>
>   
>> The wiki that I co-administer, has a Hebrew subdirectory. A week or so
>> ago, I started working on it, to get it ready to announce. And that
>> included installing SMW on it and running its installation routine. So
>> if any of you have any suggestions, or any requests for testing, I stand
>> ready to test anything part of SMW's core, or Semantic Result Formats,
>> or Semantic Compound Queries. (Those are the extensions that I have in
>> place.)
>>
>> As I said, if someone has already thought of this, I'd be glad to hear
>> about it. But right now, I strongly suspect that the SMW code will need
>> extensive reworking, even to having a new global code, either in
>> SMW_Settings.php (to be overridden in LocalSettings.php) or, better yet,
>> in SMW_LanguageXx.php. Say, $smwgWriteDirection. The default, perhaps
>> set in SMW_Language.php, would be "ltr", but the Hebrew, Arabic, and
>> Urdu (when we ever write that) value would be "rtl." I suspect that
>> SMW_DV_Time.php and SMW_DV_Linear.php (and maybe SMW_GeoCoords.php as
>> well) would be dependent on this value, and would have to use it to
>> govern where to find a unit or calendar-preference symbol during parsing
>> (which might not be necessary), and where to /put/ the symbol during
>> /printing/ (which we can't get around).
>>
>> I've thought of another problem specific to annotating dates in Hebrew,
>> but I'll address that separately.
>>
>> Temlakos
>>
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