[Koha] Right To Left in Arabic KOHA

[Ruth Bavousett]

I've had occasion recently to look this problem over, despite not being a
speaker of any right-to-left languages, and there are two major parts of
the problem here:

1) String translation (which Koha handles with Pootle)
2) Layout translation (things flushing right instead of left, table column
order, and so on).

Koha handles the string-translation part very well, *if* the translation
team has done that work; many translations remain only partial, so there
are still lots of English words appearing on the pages.  Naturally, anyone
bilingual who wants to help Koha grow should be encouraged to participate
(at http://translate.koha-community.org) in getting the strings translated!

The layout-translation?  Not so much.  The code automatically inserts
'dir="rtl"' in the html tag at the page header, for languages so
designated, but the default CSS still contains many 'float: left' and
'text-align: left' directives, which causes the pages to look very strange
for right-to-left readers.  It is that problem I've been looking into, and
I believe I have a solution in the works; it is functioning on my OPAC test
server on my laptop, with English and Arabic installed, and behaving the
way I would expect it to.

My solution has four requirements:
   1) It cannot disrupt left-to-right pages; if a library has both English
and Arabic as choices, both need to work.
   2) It should be generalized, so that any RTL language can use it.
   3) It should be semi-automatic; at most, a system-preference needs to be
set to make it work.
   4) It should *not* be a complete new set of templates, which would make
upkeep a bigger problem.

The approach I'm testing right now meets all four of these requirements;
you just translate the templates with the script at
misc/translator/translate, as you do now, and enable the language in the
system preferences, as you do now, and it Just Works.   There is still some
CSS tweaking and testing to be done, and the task of extending the solution
into the staff client, but I'm on it.

After I finish this patch, hopefully in the next week or two, I will be
releasing it for the community; it should easily apply to 3.6.x, 3.8.x, and
master.

*D Ruth Bavousett*
Lead Migration Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Support and Consulting for Open Source Software
Headquarters: Santa Barbara, CA
Office: Lawrence, KS
Phone/Fax (888)900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ruth at bywatersolutions.com



On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:21 AM, Karam Qubsi <karamqubsi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Mason,
> this is not clear for me , can you give us more explanation ?
> the po files contains strings (not) css codes so where we have to put
> this codes ?
>
> I almost done in make koha from right to left (by changing the css
> templates manually ) and it's seems to be OK when it finish .
>
> it's not just about the direction of the text all the site must be
> right to left ( some images must be changed like the directions of
> some arrows when browsing a Shelve )
>
> so i wish you explain more to us about your idea it may make it more
> easy to us ,
> in the links you provide they are talking about Pootle in general , i
> wish some one tell us if this available for koha too .
>
> thanks a lot.
>
>
> where I have to put the lang
>
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:18 AM, Mason James <mtj at kohaaloha.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 2012-05-1, at 9:36 AM, Karam Qubsi wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Sam,
> >> I think that we can create a css templates that support all the rtl
> >> languages and let the user select what he prefer
> >> if his language is ltr he will select the default one , or he will
> >> select the second choice rtl to support his language, but each
> >> language must be translated to be supported , our group is from the
> >> Arab world and we are working to make koha in Arabic we are working
> >> here  :
> >> translate.koha-community.org/ar/36/
> >>
> >> you can ask to open a Persian translation project and start
> >> translating , and when finishing you may find it easier if you find
> >> koha support the style from right to left :)
> >
> >
> > oops - i now see you have discovered the 'right-to-left' translate
> option for pootle, already :)
> >
> >
> >> and koha 3.8 know is fully supported in search and retrieve for
> >> non-Latin languages .
> >>
> >> I hope you will find the best way to start your  Persian project :)
> >>
> >> kind regards
> >> Karam Qubsi
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Karam Qubsi
> Koha Arab translation Team
> http:koha.wikibrary.org
> Wikibrary for Arab librarians
> http://wikibrary.org
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