Salasaga doesn't support RTL language like Arabic

[Fahad]

I attach test project with arabic text to show that salasaga doesn't support RTL langauge in two aspects :

- in Text layer
-when export to swf

The Arabic text are ok in editing mode

I am using salasaga_200912061511 version.

[Justin Clift (justinclift)]

Added a Blueprint for this, so it gets done:

  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/salasaga/+spec/add-rtl-support

[abdullahc (sneetsher)]

Salam (Hi) All, Thank you Fahad for reporting this bug.

This is because Text Layer doesn't use BiDi Algorithm (Reordering RTL & Shaping Arabic).

For the time being (before a fix released) you can use 'The Free Ressam' (http://wiki.github.com/hasenj/arabic-writer) as a workaround, see screen shot.

[Khaled Hosny (khaledhosny)]

I didn't check the source code, so forgive my uninformed comment. Instead of trying to implement RTL support internally, the text layer (whatever this is supposed to be) should rely on Pango text layout library, which is the basis of GTK2 i18n support, or even use higher level GTK text widgets.

[Justin Clift (justinclift)]

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

Abdellah, I'll take a look at 'The Free Ressam', but it won't be before this 0.8.0-alpha6 release. There's a lot to look at already, so I'm focused on just fixes for serious bugs for the moment. :)

Khaled, Pango is being used for some parts of things, but it's still not quite enough. :)

There are lots of parts that need to be updated for RTL, including the display of text in the working area using Pango.

It needs to:

 a) Display correctly in RTL fashion in the working area (bottom right)
 b) Display correctly in the "edit box" part of the text layer dialog
 c) Save RTL text correctly into project files
 d) Load RTL text correctly from project files
 e) Export RTL text correctly to swf (and also to HTML5 or whatever other output may be added for beta1)

I think it'll be a reasonable amount of effort, though not huge. That's why it's been targeted to the 0.8.0-beta1 release instead of this present 0.8.0-alpha6.

Hope that's ok. :)

[abdullahc (sneetsher)]

Salam ALL,

Clift, Not all these needs some work on.

- d, c & d are OK, see screen-shot.