Created attachment 134049 [details] [review] Extends the Arabic default layout In a discussion about the base direction of bidirectional text https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/3845, I have affirmed that one should prefer bidirectional control characters in keyboard layouts of right-to-left scripts to text-length based guesses of the paragraph direction or UI interface elements producing bidirection control characters. The poignance of the Unicode elaborations on bidirectional text http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr9/ strongly suggest inclusion of bidirectional control characters in keyboard layouts. The Persian and the Hebrew default keyboard layouts already contain the least of it. But the Arabic layout needs a patch to support the bidirectionality algorithm of Unicode which I here deliver. On the occasion I have also mapped the rest of the layout full with signs useful for typographic and polyglot usage, continuing the tendencies laid down by the community in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27472 in which basic Persian characters have been added. As filled space is more useful than void space in keyboard layouts and the ordinary Arabic computer user does not at all enter the risk of transcending the second shift level, I have been able to include most Arabic alphabets’ characters in it, namely Pashto, Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi, Turkic languages. Again, nobody cares about that until he need it, and empty space is a waste the retainal of which only serves vague fancies of possible characters to be served by the layout later.
Some clarifications would be nice to get. Did you talk to actual Arabic-speaking (-writing) people? Any feedback that I could look at? Arabic is quite important (widely used) layout so I would not like to make too many people unhappy. Thank you.
“Did you talk to actual Arabic-speaking (-writing) people?” I myself write Arabic (as I write Cyrillic languages and Latin-written ones). And I am not acquainted with any people, let alone Arabs that also use XKB, or even such who would write even more languages in Arabic script. Most humans cannot grasp the fact anyhow that keyboards are a thing that one can debate (these twenty people or so that come to this issue tracker in a year are actually an exotic species if related to the millions of humanity that use the internet heavily and should have an interest in keyboard questions) even when they let themselves appear not to be corporate vendor shills. With my apriorism I fare well making results, while keyboard studies are in nobody’s capacity. But however, I have not even changed *any* character position, so unhappy people would be it intentionally. The point has been to add bidirectional control characters, as are needed for Unicode’s Bidirectionality algorithm and has already happened in the Persian and Hebrew layouts in XKB. Not necessarily taking a stern view, everyone actually needs these signs. You know why? I have mapped them intentionally uneasy to reach (lest they be touched with unexpected consequences), but in a row, so they can be hit intentionally, so there is nary a question whether they are well-placed. Secondly, I have fixed the fact that one cannot have Western Arabic and Eastern Arabic Numbers at the same time on a keyboard even though in most regions but numbers are known and current. The previous two options are kept, but now the other is always also available on the third level, so people have the options to use both systems as they want without switching the layout. (The weird layout “Arabic (AZERTY/digits)” has an analogous possibility with my patch.) Thirdly, I have fixed the backslash having quite a bug by the fact of not being defined at all. This resulted in falling back to the default Latin layout, which for many Arabs might be English, i.e. {[backslash, numbersign]}, while the numbersign is already on the 3 ⟨AE03⟩ key, and the reason for this is dubious enough. The second-most likely result is most pointless {[ccedilla, Ccedilla]} from the French layout. In my case it has been {[numbersign, apostrophe]} from the German layout, which is also unfortunate. So I have set it to {[backslash, ellipsis]}, backslash being not without use in Arabic and the ellipsis of course wanted but not yet present. Fourthly, I have filled all free space with other Arabic characters that are not usually used for Arabic words (though some of them are for historical or dialectal texts), succeeding in making almost any Arabic script writable with these keyboard layouts. If there is any doubt about people peradventure abhorring from the layout, it can only be the fillings. If you esteem them stupid, express it please. I should probably submit a patch which does not contain those “un-Arabic” signs for the default layout so people do not abhorr (which shouldn’t happen anyway as the characters are on the AltGr and AltGr+Shift levels) and the “full edition” – it would just require two additional layouts (one with primary Western and one with primary Eastern Arabic numbers) and a marked name (you can propose one too). The layout possibly goes to the base.extras.xml but this is controversial, as one has to try hard to find something weird in the layout.
Created attachment 134811 [details] [review] An update to the Arabic layouts adding BiDi signs and better typography Now the Arabic default layout has an update which adds bidirectional control characters, allows having Arabic and European digits on the same layout, Arabic decimal separator and Arabic thousands separator, angle brackets, single guillemets, Arabic star, promille signs, en dash, non-breaking hyphen, and narrow non-breaking space, while an extra layout adds signs for polyglot usage. I have noticed that the OLPC layout is not in the XML data. I have fixed this too on the occasion, as I have had to redact the OLPC layout too for it having the European digits in addition to the Arabic ones and the percent and promille signs placed accordingly and I have changed its comment to exactly denote the changes.
Created attachment 135880 [details] [review] An update to the Arabic layouts adding BiDi signs, better typography, and Ugaritic Ugaritic goes digital! I have had a fancy two weeks ago which lead to the creation of an Ugaritic keyboard layout. It took two hours with my experience of creating XKB keyboard layouts and today I have tested it and have not found any error. Accordingly, I have appended an Ugaritic keyboard layout for XKB to the Arabic keyboard file of the repository. Now people can effectively write their tweets and whatever in Ugaritic (if they have the skills). I have also removed some spaces (in the number row) and decided to implement the Farsi_yeh in the extended layout because it is crucial to have this exact Unicode character in some applications though it can be exactly imitated by the two Arabic yāʾs. For a clean commit history, I have collected all in a new commit which I submit herewith. Maybe there will be added keyboard layouts for Old South Arabian and Old North Arabian too – but I have not done that yet.
Thank you, committed!
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