Project:Better directionality and i18n development

Please see mw:Directionality support

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This page lists bugs, for the technical implementation and other info, see http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Project:RTL

• Italic lines are issues that were already present before enabling wgBetterDirectionality / fixing bug 6100.
• Note that this page may have issues striked through that are not yet fixed in SVN

Basic development guidelines

• Input boxes should follow content direction. Path and URL input are usually LTR.
• Skins (in order of approximate importance): vector, monobook, cologneblue, modern, classic, chick, nostalgia, simple

Issues in MediaWiki core

• all input fields by default in content language
• Dirmarks in Special:Contributions (mwr:91289)
• Sitenotice should be in content dir (mwr:91300)
• fix image left/right alignment on RTL wikis (inconsistent between skins!!) (mwr:91340)
• CologneBlue/Standard: due to CSS flipping, preferences said quickbar was left, while it was right (similar to image issue) (mwr:91432)
• External link icons
  • vector/monobook/modern/simple: icons always follow user direction -> minor bug, quite difficult to fix
  • chick/standard/cologneblue: don't use icons so no problem
• firstHeading: I'd like to keep it at the side of userlang, but it mostly follows contentlang. Maybe add DirMarks? Or align it to content direction anyway?
• dirmark for protect log (done partially, bugzilla:15897 needs to be fixed)

Fallback

If an LTR language is a the fallback for an RTL language, an untranslated message will appear as RTL and this is not great. It's not a problem for Hebrew, Arabic and Persian, because practically everything is translated, but other languages, such as Urdu, have many messages in English. For example, at Special:LanguageStats/ur, you'll have the following message

Translation statistics for اردو (recent translations).

It should appear like this:

Translation statistics for اردو (recent translations).

(The word in the middle "اردو" is the name of the language – "Urdu".)

Thanks. --Amir E. Aharoni 23:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, this is nearly impossible to fix in MediaWiki, unfortunately. First, I don't think there is an easy way to know whether the message is written in the fallback language. Secondly, it's not really feasible to add align each message according to the direction of the language. SPQRobin 15:14, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Issues in extensions

Babel

• Use a better way to decide whether a language is RTL (current depending on 'babel-directionality' msg)

CleanChanges

• CleanChanges: history & recentchanges need DirMark

CodeReview (bugzilla:29658)

• direction mark for revision paging links; paths and code diff should be LTR (mwr:91293)
• summaries, comments, editing box should be content language
• comments should be aligned right for RTL languages

Collection

• Inline CSS (mwr:91772)

FlaggedRevs

• "unchecked" box on articles should follow content direction, not user direction

GlobalUsage

• image alignment should follow user direction (mwr:90589)

Interwiki

• Align titles on explanation table correctly (mwr:r90518)
• Align URLs as LTR (mwr:r90518, mwr:r90519)
• log displays incorrectly for url, solution: put url at the end i.e. prefix (trans) (local) (http://example.com), but that is not a logical order..

LiquidThreads

• arrows are wrong (see e.g. Support) (mwr:91176)
• PageContentLanguage: history, diff, thread view (mwr:91182, mwr:91338)
• use .mw-content-ltr/rtl as well
• LiquidThreads: use local languages digits on threads title. (۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹۰ instead 1234567890 for Persian) (mwr:91338)
  • For reply in the URL? ("reply_(2)") (mwr:91528)
• Use contlang instead of pagelang, otherwise special page returns userlang

Translate

• In translation page: alignment of language names and Google/Microsoft etc.
• In "Review all translate messages in": the direction of the source and the target language must match the right direction of each language. (mwr:91171)
• If a message had only a minor change (for example, whitespace), it is not marked as FUZZY, but when it is translated, a diff is shown above the translation box. It's directionality must match the directionality of the source language and currently it seems to match the directionality of the target language. See the example. --Amir E. Aharoni 17:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC) (mwr:92956)
• Translated pages (through the "translatable pages" feature) + other namespaces used for translation, should match the directionality of the language (93985)

UploadWizard (bugzilla:24692)

• make RTL versions of the navigation arrows at the top of the page (mwr:91525)

WebFonts

• icon -> bugzilla:29609 (mwr:r91077, mwr:r91179)

Wikidata (OmegaWiki)

• Expression and DefinedMeaning pages should follow user direction

  Please contact kipcool (committer) before making changes. He's the current maintainer of Wikidata.

WikiLove

• kittens aligned left ([[File:Blabla.jpg|left]]) should be aligned right in RTL wikis (minor issue)
• Background images of options buttons don't display properly (minor issue) (mwr:r93955)

Related

• demonstration of Break down protection summary in log_params (machine-readable, timezone-friendly, localizable expires date/timestamp)
• This is now Bugzilla:29671 : When on an RTL wiki, and I specify uselang=en, the URL should be redirected to the uselang URL. Example: http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5%3A%D8%B3%D8%AC%D9%84&page=PrefixExport+extension&uselang=en should be redirected to http://robinpepermans.be/mw-dev/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=PrefixExport+extension&uselang=en Otherwise, modifying the URL is a pain.