Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Maybe it's not bad news for everyone , but it is for me at least :(

As Jussi Mäkinen said on Dubai Meeting that Arabic language will not be supported yet as writing and sending SMS ..etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkiivAuMmBo#t=1m38s


so it will be released in the Middle East without an Arabic Interface, Arabic keyboard or even Arabic writing support :mad:

that for sure will decrease the sales in the area cause a lot of regular users can't use a phone without ,at least, arabic writing support .

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

That's awkward considering Linux supports this quite well from what I've heard...
What's really missing to add support? Fonts?
As for keyboard, some stickers and xmodmap might do the trick, I don't know :/

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

probably you need to package your own i18n. it's probably the same thing with CJK support.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

(This thread fits better to the Maemo 5 forum since there are solutions at software level)

The good news is that it's all open source and it is possible to get it working just as integrated as the officially supported languages.

Contact Mohammed Sameer and Matan Ziv-av to know the status of the work they did for Maemo 4 and the N800/N810, and whether they have plans to bring Arabic to Maemo 5.
http://foolab.org/node/1719
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/him-arabic/
http://twitter.com/Msameer
http://maemo.org/profile/view/matan/

See also One Click HEBREW Install - Input Method, Fonts and Locale Fix (mentions an Arabic plugin)

EDIT: hope it helps --> http://twitter.com/quimgil/status/5194483845

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Viewing Arabic messages and web pages works. I've used them personally.

Arabic in modest seems to work too. Someone told me (Can't remember who ;-))

So the fonts are there. What we need is a way to enter arabic which is probably a plugin for the on-screen keyboard.

I wrote a plugin for N810/Diablo but didn't yet have time to port it to Maemo5. I'll try again as soon as the HIM plugins documentation for Maemo5 becomes available.

As for an Arabic UI, I'm not personally interested in that and will not help with the actual work but I can help with packaging and/or bringing interested people together.

It's just a matter of time :-)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

R-R
Thanks for your post . a lot of my friends has been disappointed when they knew about it .

the stickers are good solution and the laser is even better but when it comes like officially it makes you feel good :)




bbns
Maybe it's a good Idea except that I'm not a programmer but I want to help by any way even if I have to learn how to do that .




qgil
Big Big thanks for helping and here is MSameer :)

and you are 100% right , this thread suppose to be in Maemo 5 forum so I hope anyone can move it there




MSameer
the problem is not with me or with you since you can read and type in English , the problem is for the Arabian regular users which will ask first thing about supporting the Arabic language as you know

At this moment a lot of people on Arabic forums are discussing this problem and some of them start thinking about search for a new device other than N900 .

I'm afraid that when the N900 released it will not have a lot of Arabic users and the sales of this great phone will go down in the Middle East for a small problem such this .

I don't think that on-screen keyboard will solve the problem because some people will think like "Why I have to use the on-screen keyboard when I have a physical keyboard ?" .
My Idea is to make the physical and the on-screen keyboard supporting Arabic (I don't know if that possible or not but I believe that there is nothing impossible on Maemo 5 :))

Someone will ask "If we make the keyboard supporting Arabic , how could we change the keyboard language when we need to write in other language ?" . The easiest way to do that is to have a small language icon on the top of the screen with the mobile information icons , so if you have to change the language of the keyboard , all what you have to do is click the icon and chose the language you want . :)


I want to help by more than just an Idea but thats all what I have
<== blaming himself for not learning programming :(

I hope with all my heart that the solution will come before N900 release

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Just to set the expectations right: Arabic hardware keyboard and Arabic localization of pre-installed system and applications is not in the current plans. Never say never, but I personally doubt we will see this officially supported in Maemo 5.

I'm happy helping getting things done in the software side when it comes to push documentation or strings out. Yesterday I got a question about Catalan, which has common problems with Arabic and any non-supported language. It is expected that more volunteer translators from other languages will show up.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

For third party Maemo software there is community project to make a framework to allow volunteers to provide translation for software. A testbed for application Conboy can be found and discussed here.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

fwiw there are some Arabic related locale settings when selecting Region in the latest image I'm testing:

Arabic (Bahrain)
Arabic (Kuwait)
Arabic (Oman)
Arabic (Qatar)
Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
Arabic (United Arab Emirates)

This is only used for locale settings such a timezone, currency units and so on. Better than nothing...

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Well, Arabic fonts are there, we chose 3 pretty good fonts for you to enjoy. Rendering works perfectly in browser, pdf reader, file manager, you name it. Also, text is automativally rendered right to left automatically. Media file content is extracted in arabic as well and overall, there should be very nice arabic experience support by default on the device. A big thing that is missing is the input support and the translations. But we are eagerly awaiting for community contributions for those.

Messaging also works well. [Edit] Of course only for *receiving* :o

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Actually I'm quite happy for the "English-only" solid keyboard, I didn't like how messy was the Arabic keyboard on my E71, they removed some symbols like " ; " for example. I had to press the symbol button each time I wanted to wink lol.

I rarely type in Arabic, I do enjoy receiving Arabic. I think on-screen keyboard will be a nice feature for the phone. If I was a hardcore Arabic typer I would not buy this phone, I'll wait for the non keyboard version of it.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I agree that at least an on-screen keyboard is essential, UI and physical keyboard will come and isn't essential for me but without input with a virtual keyboard...well that would be good at all. If I understood correctly receiving text works and I'm thankful for that leaving only the need for input, so...

...Let us know if we can help make this happen!

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I think we could at least make an installable extra keyboard layout for the arabic.
My only ocncern is that we have two fewer keys in the on screen keyboard than there are usually keys in the arabic keyboards. But I'm sure we can handle those somehow.

Basically, we don't have space for the
http://www.abckeyboards.net/language...ard_layout.gif

Rightmost key on the first alphabet row and we don't have space for the rightmost key on the lowest alphabet row. But those keys can be moved behind shift key.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

^ some Arabic keyboard phones have 2 letters in one button. My Blackberry Curve have 5 buttons that have 2 Arabic letters each.

EDIT: I found the N97 Keyboard.

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...6062009036.jpg

2 letters on 10 buttons :P

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Dear Maemo & Nokia,

Plz, try to solve the Arabic issues in N900 before launching them to arabin country ( specialy in Gulf-GCC), otherwise, your sales will affect sharply....

(i think you know that)

plz, do your best.....

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Sorry for the delayed ,
I wonder , is there an Arabic programmer team in Middle East Nokia ? tow reasons for this quiz :-
1. all the past Arabic supporting cellphone , who did translate them ?
2. The officially sellers in Nokia Care said that N900 will released in the Middle East with full support for Arabic !! I've heard that they had entered to a course "How to deal with N900 ?"

but for sure we can't get the right information from sellers :D

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Thanks a lot for the information , I've helped Conboy with the translation :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Of course it's better :D

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Thanks for the clarification
I think we could do it but the only thing we need mostly is the instructions from some experts to make a useful solution to this problem :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I don't know , Maybe for you it's good but for a lot of Arabs it's not

see when you want to right something in a forum or writing messages to your friend , on-screen keyboard will not help you because it will take the whole screen so you can't see the conversation :(

If we want to wait we'll wait forever :p

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I can't agree more :)
for me I want at least on-screen keyboard :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

we can set it up like N97's keyboard :D

http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/c...6062009036.jpg

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

As you know on any Arabic keyboard there are 2 letters on 13 Keys :rolleyes:

http://kadirigroup.com/images/ebay/Arabic-Keyboard.jpg

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I've send a mail to Tala Toukan , The Public Relations Manager, Lower Gulf, Nokia

hope that I'll receive the replay :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

thanks a lot,, hope they take it seriously

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I got this from another forum, it says that they called "NOKIA CARE" and they assured that it has full Arabic support, Software and hardware.

EDIT: It may be not true.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

That's me :D

They said if you buy it from the official sellers in the Middle East it will have an arabic package for UI and Keyboard but if you buy it from other places like Europe it will not have that package :cool:

hope he's right :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Oh lol!

To be honest, a Nokia in the Middle East without Arabic keyboard just doesn't make any sense, I remember in the 90s people used to worry about that.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Alhamdullilahh..:)

really you assured me .....haa, now i am going just to wait for this devise to be released & immediately take it...:)

الله يبشرك بالخير دائما:):):)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

yea it doesn't make any sense if released without arabic support...

finally,,,

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

now we have to change the topic to: Good News..:)..:)
no more bad news..:)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I'm not going to comment on what Nokia care said. I'll just state facts I know :)

The keyboard mat (the actual part that has the letters) can be changed. All what's needed is Nokia making one and the support for it on the hardware side.

The only thing I can offer as a software developer is the on-screen keyboard. I'm not interested in a hardware Arabic one but I'm interested in being able to type Arabic every now and then :)

As for the translation, I think I know someone who can do it. I'll try to poke him and see.

But that's not an official Nokia support ;)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

My friend,

Since you are software devloper, you should look as well for the rest of the nokia lovers comments & needs, not only what you like or wand.:)

i disagree with you, on-screen arabic support is important but not less than the keyboard with arabic letters & hardware;)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I'm concentrating on what can be done from a software point of view. Hardware keyboard is just hardware! Nothing I can do about it.

And no, I volunteer and use my own free time to do stuff so you can't dictate what I should do with MY free time.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

thanx, & sorry 4 misunderstanding then....:D

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Haha.. This is good news.. I am not so much interested in the arabic hardware keyboard, since I don't use it so much. .but I would prefer using it once in a while though.. So I think using an on-screen keyboard would be perfect for me..

I totally agree with you MSameer.. :D

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Ukeyboard is in Extras-testing and it includes Arabic virtual keyboard among many others for the price of... 20Kb. Impressive!

It needs still some testing but probably nothing that can't be done by Roman Moravcik, the community developer in charge.

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

I gave it a try and it works. Only "problem" is you find Arabic towards the bottom in the text input control panel applet ;-)

Now I need to do nothing :D

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

Hebrew text input works great with ukeyboard also :)

Re: Bad news : N900 is not supporting Arabic "yet"
 

That's great job :cool:

The only thing that is missed now is the device :D