Fix RTL for Arabic, Persian and Hebrew languages

[Tia Lapis]

Just now, Mohannad said:

as far as i see this  was not a problem to you, and you haven't following this topic, they have said we are thinking about it, we gonna conisder in the long term.

so yes they said they will find solution.

better thing to do not to stick your nose in places you don't know about it .

But I do know about it. Serif NEVER promised the feature, they said they consider it for the long term. As long as there is no clear feature anouncement it is very strange to expect delivery of a feature.

And that I disagree with all the hate towards Serif for not implementing this is no reason for personal attacks. I would love full japanese support. But it's not on the roadmap currently so I have to live with the situation. Constant whining won't change that.

[Mohannad]

am just saiyng is someone is talking like Tia who have no clue that affainity have respone to many , that they will consider and they taking this in mind to be supported and fixed, and just replaiyng to people as he or she a team devolper and answering  "" no no no there is no plan ,, not in the plan""", then am just saiyng that what nosey people do.

[Mohannad]

3 minutes ago, Tia Lapis said:

But I do know about it. Serif NEVER promised the feature, they said they consider it for the long term. As long as there is no clear feature anouncement it is very strange to expect delivery of a feature.

And that I disagree with all the hate towards Serif for not implementing this is no reason for personal attacks. I would love full japanese support. But it's not on the roadmap currently so I have to live with the situation. Constant whining won't change that.

Sorry i don't talk to members, only to affanity staff or people who matter. 

[Patrick Connor]

1 minute ago, Mohannad said:

Sorry i don't talk to members, only to affanity (sic) staff or people who matter.

Then you are in the wrong place, (and you are doing the very opposite...responding to a member when you say you will not). These are public customer forums where "members" reply to posts

Any member can ignore any other member they choose. In a desktop browser hover over their avatar and there is an ignore option.

Anybody who wants to only communicate with Affinity Staff can email Affinity@serif.com but there are no answers to "when" any new feature will arrive no matter how you ask.

[Mohannad]

1 minute ago, Patrick Connor said:

Then you are in the wrong place, (and you are doing the very opposite...responding to a member when you say you will not). These are public customer forums where "members" reply to posts

Any member can ignore any other member they choose. In a desktop browser hover over their avatar and there is an ignore option.

Anybody who wants to only communicate with Affinity Staff can email Affinity@serif.com but there are no answers to "when" any new feature will arrive no matter how you ask.

oh good thanks Staff Member 😇

[Tia Lapis]

18 minutes ago, Arun Sarkar said:

Why I need ANSI?

A unicode bengali font contain 565 to 1200 glyph. Where a ANSI support 256. so it is much less time consuming to create a keybaodr driver with ANSI font layout.

I am just an DTP operator who need an application which serves my need in publishing related jobs in indic language. I am not an programmer.

Just see the attached screenshot, how many line I have to add to create a KBD. Do you believe that an operator need to do that to produce some books? It not it painful for you if you have to do this?

 

I see. I don't know how hard it would be switching to Macs for you but macOS has Bangla input support and Affinity seems to work fine with it. The word is probably at a whole senseless gibberish as I don't speak the language, but it looks fine to me.

[Mohannad]

18 minutes ago, Arun Sarkar said:

Why I need ANSI?

A unicode bengali font contain 565 to 1200 glyph. Where a ANSI support 256. so it is much less time consuming to create a keybaodr driver with ANSI font layout.

I am just an DTP operator who need an application which serves my need in publishing related jobs in indic language. I am not an programmer.

Just see the attached screenshot, how many line I have to add to create a KBD. Do you believe that an operator need to do that to produce some books? It not it painful for you if you have to do this?

i just wanna say i hope you get the best appreciation that you deserve for this effort that you are puttin there to do your job 😘

[Sam Neil]

6 minutes ago, Arun Sarkar said:

Windows also has fully Indic language support. Serif support unicode but as far as I know Serif does not support Shaping Engine fully for Open Type fonts. So it is not an issue with MAC or Win.

I know my reply become rude many times but it is just an anger which I can't control. I purchased so many Bengali open type fonts but can't use it, rather I have to convert it from scratches into an ANSI. I wish this feature from PagePlus Age and still waiting. Even not a single Indian Language Development company support Serif's product with their ANSI font. So what we do with it? No support from Indian Company for Serif user with their ANSI font and Serif does not support Indian Company's Open Type font. You can't understand what we are facing.

 

I feel and share your frustration. The fact of the matter is Affinity trio was not very well thought through as far as RTL or Indic languages were concerned and the applications clearly demonstrate the fact they were not designed with this in mind. I have no idea how Serif is going to address this major issue but I doubt it will be in version 2.X or 3.X or at all. 

So writing here over an over like a broken record is not going to make any difference as it not on the cards and Serif has made NO indication on the possibility of it ever being on the cards.

So I suggest please guys end your plea and frustration with the team as it will not make any difference to this matter. For my project I have used so many hacks including writing a JAVA script to fool the app to produce the PDF  as true RTL file!

Frankly it is getting silly and childish going on about something that does not exist.

[twinger]

For limited amounts of RTL Hebrew inserted into a LTR text (like English), I've had good luck with this simple procedure:

• Prepare the text in a Word Processor that supports RTL Unicode text (like LibreOffice Writer or MS Word). Often for my purposes I just cut and paste Hebrew text from a Bible programme that supports Unicode.
• Use this website to flip it around: https://onlineunicodetools.com/reverse-unicode
• Cut and paste the resulting text into AP.

Perhaps this will work for some other RTL languages, though I know it won't work right for Arabic. And I'm sure it's not a good solution when the entire document must be RTL.

Edit: I noted after posting this that the accent marks aren't actually in the right place, though the vowel points are. It's simple enough to create the text without the accents, or to move them manually in short segments of text.

[Jim Monson]

Thanks, Twinger, for sharing this work around. We have hoped for a long time that Affinity would address this problem, but I suppose first things first. Affinity developers have done so many great things up to now. I'm sure this is on their (long) list. 

[Sam Neil]

8 hours ago, twinger said:

For limited amounts of RTL Hebrew inserted into a LTR text (like English), I've had good luck with this simple procedure:

• Prepare the text in a Word Processor that supports RTL Unicode text (like LibreOffice Writer or MS Word). Often for my purposes I just cut and paste Hebrew text from a Bible programme that supports Unicode.
• Use this website to flip it around: https://onlineunicodetools.com/reverse-unicode
• Cut and paste the resulting text into AP.

Perhaps this will work for some other RTL languages, though I know it won't work right for Arabic. And I'm sure it's not a good solution when the entire document must be RTL.

Edit: I noted after posting this that the accent marks aren't actually in the right place, though the vowel points are. It's simple enough to create the text without the accents, or to move them manually in short segments of text.

I have had the same issues with Farsi as APUB cannot deal with RTL and mirrors the text but managed to overcome this by using an app too.

[Ronald N. Tan]

Just to reply as a form of solidarity and voting for the proper and full support of RTL languages, especially Arabic and Farsi. I am currently learning Farsi for the purpose of culinary purposes and as mentioned previously and many...many times...Serif needs to somehow add Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Urdu as these are the major Middle Eastern languages with potential to poach users away from Adobe products.

My Hindi Devanagari is stronger than my Farsi.

I've expressed my disappointment with the lack of proper Indic languages in Affinity trio of products. Indic languages are LTR and should be "more easier" to adapt and implement than RTL.

I have to use the Glyph Browser and fix certain merging of Hindi alphabets (as an example). When entering Farsi, say for typing out names of Persian Food, I have to use the glyph and find the specific glyph that corresponds with the alphabet's position. It's cumbersome, but for my use (and needs), it is a band-aid fix.

If not for version 1.X, I and many others who are of RTL and LTR languages would like to have this in version 2. Heck, maybe raise the price a little bit. Even with a few raise in price, still BEATS renting software from Adobe!!!

[Ronald N. Tan]

16 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

موفق باشید و نوش جان

I had to "cheat" and use Google translate. At the moment, it's not even preschool level. It took me a long time to identify each of the letters in your sentence. Isolated forms of meem and noon clearly stick out. 🙂

متشکرم.

Also, at the moment, a lot of my self-learning is memorizing specifically words and names and not yet sentence forming levels, if that make sense. If you had pasted "نجمیه باتمانقلیچ" I would instantly recognize that as the name of the super famous Persian chef, whom I am using her books to learn Persian cooking, etc.

Alas...not to get offtopic. 🙂

I make graphics for my self-learning in Affinity Publisher. Each simple word, I identify the individual letters and type them in AP via using Glyph browser. Copying and pasting does not work properly in any of the Affinity softwares.

Thats why (someone like me) I would REALLY like to have RTL support in the Affinity softwares.

[Ronald N. Tan]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

As a slightly Persian purist it is better to use Persian words where possible in place of Arabic loan words. While شکر root words are in common usage in Persian, سپاس /se'pās/ is completely Persian.

For words and short sentences I use LibreOffice with Complex Text Layout enabled. You can use LibreOffice draw, and export the words or short sentences from there as EPS or whatever. The fonts (even those with good RTL support) typically still break slightly but you can fix them up quite easily. 

I just figured out (with my extreme limited vocabulary) that the your original Farsi well wishes contained (romanized) nush-e jan or nush-e joon. "نوش جان" Which has the literal meaning of "may it be sweet for your soul" but my Chef Najmieh-joon uses that at the end of all her recipes in the equivalent of "Bon appetit."

I have looonnnnng ways to go.

I have Amiri font installed and I use PS to paste and made the words super huge on my screen.

I know certain circles prefer "durood" (درود) as a teaching way to say "Hello" instead of salam (سلام), which (again) I know has Arabic origins.

I apologize in advance as an outside and clearly learning Farsi...why would someone feel slight off, when the entire Persian alphabet is Arabic letters.

[Ronald N. Tan]

I don't want my post to be here-say; however, with version 2 of the Affinity Suite around the corner and people seem to be bringing up "Version 2" talk on Twitter via search for the "@affinitybyserif" at-mention, I am truly hoping Serif will have a surprise for us who wants/NEEDS RTL support either for professional reasons or as indicated in my previous post history educational purposes in using Affinity suite of apps.

Regardless, as I am still a Creative Cloud subscriber for my profession in photography, Photoshop is my goto and fees for using PS (as the Photography Plan) is write-off for professional reasons, I am glad, grateful, and appreciative of Serif for making software (Publisher and Designer) affordable.

This is the AEC Magazine post referencing the already existence of a private version 2 of the Affinity Suite of software: https://aecmag.com/technology/serif-affinity-for-aec-firms/.

With this and knowing that 2 is around the corner, I remain hopeful, but will not be holding my breath for RTL support. Have a look at the Affinity Publisher (AP) users' plea for Endnote/Footnote support. That thread has literally 46 pages (!!!) of people asking and the usual Serif employee chirping canned responses.

[HighTime]

Okay, I give up. I thought maybe there would be something after all these years, but it's time to throw in the towel. RTL support is a hopeless dream.