Ubuntu
gfxboot package

  1. Bug #212491
  2. Comment #20

Comment 20 for bug 212491

Revision history for this message
Shlomil (shlomister) wrote :

> IMHO it's probably worth making sure the text is right-way-round as a first step,
> even if the shaping still needs to be implemented.

The proposed patch will fix Arabic text direction but with no char shaping (as can be seen in the attached screenshot in which I enabled Arabic again).

It seems that shaping can be achieved by using a newer version of fribidi (latest is 0.19.2).
There is a LP bug for including the newer fribidi version (LP bug #191241) in Ubuntu and Debian (is there a Debian bug for it?).
BTW, I think that shaping can be done using other libs (ICU? , Pango?). Any clue?

I built fribidi 0.19.2 on my system using Tzafrir's package ( http://tzafrir.org.il/~tzafrir/fribidi/ ) and rebuilt gfxboot Ubuntu theme again with shaping. This time there was no text displayed at all. (see second attached screenshot).

It seems that gfx-theme-ubuntu uses X keymap chars (I think) to build the bitmap fonts. But the joined chars do not exists in the keymaps because shaping occurs automatically under X. So I guess that a better way to get a list of all Arabic chars is required. I don't know how to do that and if you have an idea please share.

By the way, there is another LP Bug #119393 that is about Arabic char shaping ...
So I suggest accepting my branch and closing this bug and deal with the shaping issue described in LP bug #119393.