GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 314988
Hebrew editing is completely broken
Last modified: 2006-09-28 16:31:27 UTC
Distribution/Version: Gentoo I can't really further describe this bug, since there's not even one bit that DOES work. Currently, GtkHtml (and thus Evolution) is totally unusable for me when I wish to write e-mails in Hebrew. The expected behaviour is like that of the GtkTextView widget.
I'm using 3.7.7, and it seems to be working for me as I'd expect, though I recall seeing plenty of weird behavior in earlier versions. Which version are you using?
I'm using that exact version too, with Evolution 2.3.8. The most simple example I can think of is this: 1. Compose a new message 2. Align the text to the right 3. Write a Hebrew word, followed by a comma or a full stop, etc. The punctuation mark would appear on the right side of the word, even though it should be on the left (as the name right-to-left suggests ;-). I also tried to paste a Unicode RLM character in the beginning of a paragraph, but that just brought up other bugs like the caret staying at the beginning of the line even though I keep typing, some of them irreproducible (or at least I couldn't figure how to reproduce them)...
Dunno. I'm seeing punctuation on the left. For reference, I'm running SUSE Linux 10.0 Beta 4 using en_US.UTF-8 and switching my keyboard layout through the keyboard indicator applet for testing purposes. I've never known how to touch type in Hebrew, and I don't have the characters on this keyboard, so I'm using the phonetic layout.
adding I18N keyword.
Created attachment 52249 [details] Bug screenshot I'm attaching a screenshot to make sure the problem is clear. You can see the punctuation marks are positioned in the beginning of each Hebrew line, instade of the end. This screenshot was taken with Evolution 2.4.0 and libgtkhtml 3.8.0.
Created attachment 52260 [details] Screenshot to depict RTL editing w.r.t. punctuation marks. I do not have Hebrew in the keyboard layouts available in my Keyboard Indicator applet, so I added another RTL language Arabic. I tried using the punctuation marks and I am attaching the screenshot here. I am unable to simulate the bug, somehow.
Created attachment 52277 [details] screenshot: works for me SUSE Linux 10.0, gtkhtml2-3.8.0-3, evolution-2.4.0-3 I tested with both non-HTML and HTML mail. They both worked. I'm using the "Israel Phonetic" layout, since I don't know how to touch-type in Hebrew, and I don't have Hebrew letters on my keyboard.
I filed a distro bug over at Gentoo's: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106031
*** Bug 317483 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I managed to reproduce this bug on: Slackware 10.2 / Dropline Gnome 2.12 / Evolution 2.4 / Gtkhtml 3.8. Fedora Core 4 / Gnome 2.10 / Evolution 2.2.3 / Gtkhtml 3.6.2. Fedora Core 3 / Gnome 2.8 / Evolution 2.0.4-6 / Gtkhtml 3.3.2-3. At least in the case of Slackware machine, it has the same versions as SUSE 10.0. Different configurations?
Gilboa: I presume you have tried with Hebrew as yet. Could you also please try with a different RTL langauage like Arabic, just to be sure.
Kumar, At least on my Slackware machine, Arabic seem to be working just fine. (All the punctuation marks are added to the end of the line). I switched back to Hebrew and the problem returned. BTW, When I switch from English to Arabic, the text alignment is automatically switched to right-alignment. When I do the same with Hebrew, I have to manually switch to right-alignment. Is it possible that GtkHTML doesn't recognize Hebrew as RTL language? (and therefore doesn't switch alignment and puts the punctuation marks on the wrong end?)
Yes, looks like Hebrew specifically has problems and not all RTL editing. Changing synopsis. Needs fixing.
Same problem here, Mandriva Cooker with Evolution 2.4.1 and gtkhtml-3.8. btw, gedit can demonstrate how this should work properly: - when starting a paragraph with Hebrew letters, the text is automatically aligned to the right - punctuation marks show on the right place (i.e. on the left of the text).
I'm still experiencing this bug with Evolution 2.4.2.1 and GtkHtml 3.8.2. Is there any progress dealing with it?
I've never been able to reproduce the problem. I don't have any non-SUSE distros handy currently. Kaushal: are you able to reproduce the problem?
Mark: I haven't tried editing Hebrew on my system. Nevertheless, there appears to be an issue with Hebrew (or RTL in general) editing since a large number of related bugs have been reported. On a side note, since I am not working in gtkhtml actively these days, I might not be able to fix this issue soonish.
I'm using evolution 2.4.1 and gtkhtml 3.8.2, and it's working fine for me (like I wrote in my screenshot, "kol b'seder"). Earlier versions (including those listed above under Fedora) were certainly broken (which may have prompted the "large number of related bugs" comment), but it was my understanding that there was work done to fix those problems, and I'm no longer able to reproduce the problems I used to have. The current version has problems under Gentoo, Slackware, and Mandriva but works fine under SUSE. I'm not sure what's different in SUSE. I'm inclined to think that fixing this issue will require debugging the problem on one of the affected distributions, which is likely to delay a solution.
also see bug 311995, bug 314988, bug 325950, bug 272237. duplicate triagers please go ahead. ;-)
Just tested FC5T3. Same problem. -However-, in previous versions, the first line of text was aligned to the right (as it should) with all consequent lines aligned to the left; Under FC5T3, all lines, from the first, are aligned to the left. Versions: $ rpm -qa | egrep -e "gtkhtml|evolution" | sort evolution-2.5.92-1 evolution-data-server-1.5.92-1 evolution-webcal-2.4.1-3.2 gnome-python2-gtkhtml2-2.13.3-3.2 gtkhtml2-2.6.3-1.2.1 gtkhtml3-3.9.91-1
*** Bug 311995 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 325950 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This bug is still alive and kicking, and is CRITICAL for Hebrew speakers.
Can someone give a better isolation of this bug? I fail to see it happen on Ubuntu (both ppc and x86) with libgtkhtml3.6-18. Perhaps some other config issue is affecting this?
Created attachment 71076 [details] Abiword: Correct text alignment. (FC5)
Created attachment 71077 [details] Evolution: Incorrect text alignment.
As you see, under Abiword the exclamation mark ends the sentence while under evolution it gets glued to beginning of the sentence. More-ever, from time to time, gtkhtml completely loses its Bidi support, switching to LTR mode completely putting each new Hebrew character to the right of the previous Hebrew character. (Instead of the left switching back to LTR)
Well, it seems that as of evo 2.8 this bug is fixed (in Gentoo, at least). However, due to the confusion and different behaviour in different distro, I think we should ask for verification from other posters in this bug before closing it.
I'll download and test and Fedora Core 6 Test 3 and test it there. Hopefully (knock wood) this bug was indeed fixed in v2.8.
Verified that this bug is fixed on Mandriva Cooker with Evolution 2.8
Yey! Bug indeed seems to be fixed in Fedora Rawhide (Post FC6/Test3) $ rpm -qa | egrep -r 'gtkhtml|evolution' | sort evolution-2.8.0-6.fc6.i386 evolution-data-server-1.8.0-10.fc6.i386 evolution-data-server-devel-1.8.0-10.fc6.i386 evolution-sharp-0.11.1-10.fc6.i386 evolution-webcal-2.7.1-6.i386 gnome-python2-gtkhtml2-2.14.2-2.fc6.i386 gtkhtml2-2.11.0-3.i386 gtkhtml3-3.12.0-1.fc6.i386 Thanks! - Gilboa
Well, it seems safe to close this bug. Thanks, everyone! :-)