Last modified: 2013-09-26 16:45:55 UTC

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Bug 54310 - RTL language characters are displayed in LTR order in LTR languages (and vice versa)
RTL language characters are displayed in LTR order in LTR languages (and vice...
Status: REOPENED
Product: MediaWiki extensions
Classification: Unclassified
WikiEditor (Other open bugs)
unspecified
All All
: Low normal (vote)
: ---
Assigned To: Nobody - You can work on this!
:
Depends on:
Blocks: rtl
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2013-09-19 08:31 UTC by ineuw
Modified: 2013-09-26 16:45 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Web browser: ---
Mobile Platform: ---
Assignee Huggle Beta Tester: ---


Attachments
Incorrect reversed display of non Latin characters (138.56 KB, image/jpeg)
2013-09-19 08:31 UTC, ineuw
Details

Description ineuw 2013-09-19 08:31:58 UTC
Created attachment 13323 [details]
Incorrect reversed display of non Latin characters

Please see the attached image and Bugs #54308 & #54309.

By this time I resigned to utilize the advanced toolbar and after making an attempt, I feel very cynical because this effort is totally useless. There is a lot to be said for programmers and developers learning to proofread a chapter or so of text, to see how their ideas are working in the real world.

In the first place, It takes several steps to hide the header to gain additional viewing space or access various features. 

Finally, The non-Latin characters, like Hebrew and Arabic were inserted from left to right. For those who don't understand, that's the equivalent of displaying Latin characters from right to left, as in: . . . . L K J I H G F E D C B A

In view of my previous posts, please consider correcting this ASAP.
Comment 1 Andre Klapper 2013-09-19 10:24:29 UTC
Confirming what you see. Hebrew letters Alef and Bet are on the left. 

I am pretty sure that this is intended and that it depends on your personal language settings in https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal-i18n because depending on your "primary" language you are used to either expect the first letter on the left (LTR) or on the right (RTL).

It's the same the other way round: 
Looking at the Cyrillic character section with the interface language set to Hebrew (by simply adding &uselang=he to the URL), I also get the Russian alphabet from right to left, while Russian is a left to right language.
Comment 2 ineuw 2013-09-19 20:43:05 UTC
Andre, the user's language settings should not affect the character sets. They should be displayed in their natural order regardless of the user's language preferences.
Comment 3 Michael M. 2013-09-20 08:08:01 UTC
Reopening: I looked at en.wikipedia and de.wikipedia. Both have a set of special characters *below* the editbox, which isn't part of MediaWiki, but developed by the communities. In both cases the characters of RTL languages are shown from right to left, so even if this behavior of WikiEditor is intended (which I doubt), it is wrong based on the expectation of its users.
Comment 4 ineuw 2013-09-20 12:37:18 UTC
Michael M., Please point me to the page on en.Wikipedia where RTL characters show up correctly. I just implemented the WikiEditor on en. Wikipedia and RTL characters were displayed in LTR order. Then, I am curious as to how do you know what is the expectation of the users???
Comment 5 Daniel 2013-09-26 16:45:55 UTC
Hi. The only input I can give is that as a bi-lingual english hebrew speaker being forced with the option of having english displayed RTL or hebrew displayed LTR is CERTAINLY not desired. I'd much prefer having each language displayed in it's natural order - as it's supposed to be.

The idea of displaying Hebrew or Arabic from LTR because that's the expectation of an english speaker reminds me of a joke by Louis CK on how the pilgrims named the natives "Indians" despite the fact that they had nothing to do with India :-) (see youtube). A language should be displayed in it's order - not in the order of what a non-native speaker would like it to be :-)

blessings, Daniel

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