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[Multi] RTL language text support


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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, Sam Neil said:

Guy's realistically when do you think you will have RTL support on APUB? Version 2.0?

I have no idea when this may happen.

What I have found (on Windows) is an 'api-ms-win-core-rtlsupport-l1-1-0.dll' file in the program's directory.

I assume Serif won't comment on that 🙂

d.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 3/18/2020 at 7:57 PM, dominik said:

What I have found (on Windows) is an 'api-ms-win-core-rtlsupport-l1-1-0.dll' file in the program's directory.

I've never been happier seeing a DLL file, looks promising. fingers crossed.

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  • 8 months later...
3 hours ago, dancebles said:

is that a solution for the problem?

i'm not sure that i understand how to implement this.

There is no solution for RTL in Affinity at the present. The presence of a certain program file that Dominik discovered may be a hint that Serif has been working on or investigating RTL support, but I am not sure even that much can be safely assumed.

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1 hour ago, garrettm30 said:

There is no solution for RTL in Affinity at the present. The presence of a certain program file that Dominik discovered may be a hint that Serif has been working on or investigating RTL support, but I am not sure even that much can be safely assumed.

That DLL file seems to be a standard part of Microsoft's Visual Studio program, and has been for several years, not something specific implemented by Serif.

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6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

That DLL file seems to be a standard part of Microsoft's Visual Studio program, and has been for several years, not something specific implemented by Serif.

Thanks for this insight. I didn't know this. Too bad for RTL-users. OTOH Serif has been very clear about the fact that the implementation of RTL-support will take a long time.

d.

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1 hour ago, dancebles said:

why is it so hard to support RTL languages?

I'm not a specialist but I read quite something about it here in the forum over time. It's not just that you switch directions. There are many different rules in many different languages about spacing and hyphenation that it becomes a very complex task to write the code for it. I just can rely on what I read from Serif and they made it clear that it is not easy for them to do it properly.

Cheers,
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

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2 hours ago, dancebles said:

why is it so hard to support RTL languages?

thank you

 

It depends on the language you want to support (Arabic for example can be really hard, Hebrew much less so), but in general it is not very hard to implement RTL especially considering that they probably have engineers that are specialized in typography working for them.
My assumption is that they have made some very core components of their programs without considering RTL, and there is no easy way to make major changes now after a lot is built over it.
I'm not sure why wouldn't they make it one of their highest priority considering that about half of the freaking world is RTL, it seems to me a really bad decision.

I use designer and photo for few years now and every time I need to typeset something in my own language I have to fight the program to make it work, come on Serif...
This is a real deal breaker for a lot of designers, I don't know if I would've bought it in the first place if I knew it would take so long to implement something so basic.

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@dominik I understand but surely the later they leave it too late and the trio gain more features, wouldn't it make them into so much complex software and retrofitting will only add regression as it does not every time a new beta version comes out.

Support for RTL should have been there from day one.... imho.

Right now I am in the middle of a RTL project and you would not believe the issues I have had to get it working. So many fonts display incorrectly which means I had to abandon them and choose something else. A paragraph is now put together line-by-line as it would still mirror it to LTR if you just paste it and that is still an issue despite me using an app to "encode" the text so it is shown correctly as RTL and not LTR...

I hope they sort this out very soon...

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31 minutes ago, nicoco said:

It depends on the language you want to support (Arabic for example can be really hard, Hebrew much less so), but in general it is not very hard to implement RTL especially considering that they probably have engineers that are specialized in typography working for them.
My assumption is that they have made some very core components of their programs without considering RTL, and there is no easy way to make major changes now after a lot is built over it.
I'm not sure why wouldn't they make it one of their highest priority considering that about half of the freaking world is RTL, it seems to me a really bad decision.

I use designer and photo for few years now and every time I need to typeset something in my own language I have to fight the program to make it work, come on Serif...
This is a real deal breaker for a lot of designers, I don't know if I would've bought it in the first place if I knew it would take so long to implement something so basic.

 

28 minutes ago, Sam Neil said:

@dominik I understand but surely the later they leave it too late and the trio gain more features, wouldn't it make them into so much complex software and retrofitting will only add regression as it does not every time a new beta version comes out.

Support for RTL should have been there from day one.... imho.

Right now I am in the middle of a RTL project and you would not believe the issues I have had to get it working. So many fonts display incorrectly which means I had to abandon them and choose something else. A paragraph is now put together line-by-line as it would still mirror it to LTR if you just paste it and that is still an issue despite me using an app to "encode" the text so it is shown correctly as RTL and not LTR...

I hope they sort this out very soon...

I have the same issues, and I agree 100% with you guys
I have been using Affinity Designer for years now and whenever I want to use it to design Arabic designs I use external tools, and it's not acceptable at all, how a basic thing like this not implemented from the beginning in Affinity, it is a real  deal-breaker for a large number of designers

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RTL support is not basic, it's one of the hardest things to do on computers. Look around how few programs support it...

Vertical text (chinese and japanese) support is much easier and would be a much bigger moneymaker. Be honest - the arabic speaking community is not really a big software spender.

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1 minute ago, Tia Lapis said:

RTL support is not basic, it's one of the hardest things to do on computers. Look around how few programs support it...

Vertical text (chinese and japanese) support is much easier and would be a much bigger moneymaker. Be honest - the arabic speaking community is not really a big software spender.

OK, So that's why Adobe supprt RTL

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7 minutes ago, Tia Lapis said:

RTL support is not basic, it's one of the hardest things to do on computers. Look around how few programs support it...

Vertical text (chinese and japanese) support is much easier and would be a much bigger moneymaker. Be honest - the arabic speaking community is not really a big software spender.

Are you kidding? You are very misinformed. If RTL was not a money maker or important, Adobe would have dropped it. The fact of the matter is simple. Affinity did not plan for it and retrofitting is almost impossible which is a shame.

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6 minutes ago, Tia Lapis said:

So who besides Adobe supports it? It is no money maker. Especially for a small company as Serif.

Quark, Corel, basically whoever Serif is gunning for. As to if it makes any money for Serif, is a good point which perhaps has to do with their reluctance to touch it. The bottom line is RTL will not come to Affinity and 100 percent sure not in version 2... 

My 2 cents. 

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1 hour ago, Sam Neil said:

@dominik I understand but surely the later they leave it too late and the trio gain more features, wouldn't it make them into so much complex software and retrofitting will only add regression as it does not every time a new beta version comes out.

Support for RTL should have been there from day one.... imho.

I do not defend the lack of RTL support. I just shared my knowledge about that missing feature (set) from reading the forum. I, too, think that this would open the suite to a lot of users. But Serif have been very clear that this (and not only RTL but also vertical text flow) is a very demanding task for them. They did not explain in detail what the cause is (at least I have not seen anything).

I am not sure if it is correct to say that if it had been there from the beginning on it would have been easier to add new features. It might as well be the opposite. First define the feature set as completely as possible and then find a way on how to implement enhanced language support. But then, I am not a programer 😉

Are you doing your RTL project in APub? That indeed must be a very demanding job to do. I wonder why you did not choose a better suited package.

Cheers,
d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
iPad pro 9.7" + Apple Pencil

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11 minutes ago, dominik said:

I do not defend the lack of RTL support. I just shared my knowledge about that missing feature (set) from reading the forum. I, too, think that this would open the suite to a lot of users. But Serif have been very clear that this (and not only RTL but also vertical text flow) is a very demanding task for them. They did not explain in detail what the cause is (at least I have not seen anything).

I am not sure if it is correct to say that if it had been there from the beginning on it would have been easier to add new features. It might as well be the opposite. First define the feature set as completely as possible and then find a way on how to implement enhanced language support. But then, I am not a programer 😉

Are you doing your RTL project in APub? That indeed must be a very demanding job to do. I wonder why you did not choose a better suited package.

Cheers,
d.

Yes I am using APub  & AD for the job. Initially it was only English but then the specs changed. I definitely did not want to go to Adobe so I decided to set myself a challenge (stupidly) and here we are! 

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