Problem with RTL languages in translated GUI

[vbeh]

hi:)
there was a problem with RTL languages that was fixed:

Problem with right to left languages

the same problem exists in the translated GUI… some of the translated sentences contain one or more English words which can not be translated (or it’s not preferable to be) and that leads to a mixed sentence…

Expected behavior

the sentence should appear in RTL mode(the example is in Persian)

I fixed some of these problems by translating the English words but in some situations it can’t be done.
for example there are some strings with this: "%1$s " in the middle…sometimes this will be replaced with an Engilsh string(profile name or a link).

[r10s]

thanks for taking care! we recently pulled in the persian strings to android/ios and was very happy to see that 100% complete

to the issue, in other words, the issue is:

• when a sentence in an RTL language contains a LTR word, the whole sentence switches to LTR - which is wrong, the sentence should still be RTL.

please correct me if if got it wrong

the screenshot and the issue is about Delta Chat Desktop, right?

android/ios/desktop share most of the translations - can you tell if it is correct on android/ios?

[vbeh]

always happy to help

when a sentence in an RTL language contains a LTR word, the whole sentence switches to LTR - which is wrong, the sentence should still be RTL.

that’s correct
yes the screenshot is from Deltachat desktop Linux Version 1.20.3 (git: v1.20.3).
this problem exists on Android and Desktop versions (i just remembered that i couldn’t find language settings on iOS/Mac but I checked the other ones)

[r10s]

i am just checking the devices-message translations for android/ios - i assume that one comes from you? thanks a lot!

so, the first line with 1.22 (LTR word inside RTL sentence) is rendered wrong? or is it okay?

[vbeh]

the first line is OK(LTR numbers don’t make problems I suppose)
can you take a screenshot from about page?
I guess there are some problems in the help messages when setting up a new account (how IMAP should be handled )

[r10s]

there is no “about page” on android - but what about the last line - that is also a LTR word (the link) inside RTL sentence.

also, in the advanced-settings, three is the work “IMAP” which seems not to affect the overall sentence direction:

to me this looks okay

same for notificartion-settings and the word “LED” - also there are LTR sound-names inserted - the overall apperance seems still to be RTL.

however, these LTR-inserts are always at the beginning/end of a RTL-sentence, not sure if that makes a difference - is the IMAP-headline correct on desktop?

[vbeh]

thank you for your replies
I will report the situation in Android and iOS with screenshots
the link is in a different line so it can’t effect the other lines

[r10s]

@vbeh

the link is in a different line so it can’t effect the other lines

not really - there is no linebreak added before the link - so on wider displays, that may be one line. (in general, these string-concatenation-things are not so good, i know)

[vbeh]

the IMAP is not changed because i deliberately wrote it from end to beginning:

[r10s]

another thing:

on android/ios, the whole user-interface is flipped on RTL languages (iirc by the system that just does that on RTL languages).

on desktop there is no flipping - is that also a usual thing? or is it better to flip?

[vbeh]

there is no linebreak added before the link

the original text doesn’t have a line break…I added the line break just because of that:

[vbeh]

on desktop there is no flipping - is that also a usual thing? or is it better to flip?

that’s a controversial topic… the standard is to mirror the UI but it’s not user friendly because all the control buttons will be flipped and that is a nightmare(one of the main reasons that people don’t use RTL translations)…
so short answer: “no flipping” is better

[r10s]

so short answer: “no flipping” is better

desktop-team will love that point
but isn’t there an system option to enable/disable flipping? using the dev-tools you can flip the user-interface for english

[vbeh]

yeah I had a discussion with Firefox team about that and they answered: “you can change the UI mirroring in about:config…” but most of the time users who need translations can’t find this instructions so it’s just counterintuitive to use mirroring as default…

[r10s]

for the initial issue: to sum up: so, it is unclear if things are correct on android/ios - but desktop show sth. wrong?

[vbeh]

for the initial issue: to sum up: so, it is unclear if things are correct on android/ios - but desktop show sth. wrong?

that’s correct. Desktop has problems with that. I will report the situation with Android and iOS in ~5 hours
I had this problem with Android around 6 months ago but I don’t have an Android phone with me right now

[vbeh]

the problem exists on Android and iOS. but it’s a little different…it only happens when the sentence is started with an LTR word for example you can see that the first sentence with “Autocrypt” is muddled but the second one is fine…

android:

iOS:

although recently I fixed this particular example by translating the “Autocrypt” but the problem is there.

[r10s]

thanks a lot! i have no idea how that can be fixed, tbh. aren’t there invisible unicode characters that can control LTR/RTL flow?

or maybe the advice should be to just not to start a sentence with an LTR word in an RTL sentence.

[vbeh]

just not to start a sentence with an LTR word in an RTL sentence.

yes i can do that it’s not that hard… I guess it’s safe to say the real problem is in Desktop versions.