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1 HOW TO READ & WRITE ARABIC 94.8.4 TAKAHASHI Naoto
2
3 1. STARTING UP
4
5 1.1 INVOKING MULE
6
7 You must invoke Mule as an X client if you want to use Arabic.
8 Make sure that the environment variable DISPLAY is properly set.
9 So far only 16 dot font is available for Arabic. First, set you X
10 resources appropriately, then invoke Mule from a shell window with
11 the following command to get enough line spaces.
12
13 % mule -fsp 0+9
14
15
16 1.2 ENTERING AND LEAVING ARABIC-MODE
17
18 Hit C-] to enter arabic-mode. Whenever you are in arabic-mode,
19 you are also in visual-mode. Hitting C-] again brings you back
20 from arabic-mode, but you are still in visual-mode. Hitting C-]
21 in visual-mode brings you into arabic-mode. You can exit
22 visual-mode by hitting C-c C-c. See the figure below.
23
24
25 C-c C-c
26 +----------------------------------------------+
27 | +--------------------+ |
28 | | C-c C-c | |
29 V V | |
30 +-------------+ +-----------+ C-] +-----------+
31 | | C-] |arabic-mode| ------> | |
32 |initial state| ------> | and | |visual-mode|
33 | | |visual-mode| <------ | |
34 +-------------+ +-----------+ C-] +-----------+
35
36
37 The string "Arabic L2R" or "Arabic R2L" in mode-line means that
38 you are in both arabic-mode and visual-mode. If you see "L2R" or
39 "R2L" but not "Arabic" in mode-line, you are in visual-mode but
40 not in arabic-mode.
41
42
43 1.3 DISPLAY DIRECTION
44
45 Each buffer in Mule has a buffer local variable called
46 "display-direction". If this variable is set to nil (this is the
47 default), the lines begin from the left edge of the screen. On
48 the other hand, if display-direction is non-nil, the lines are
49 aligned to the right and texts are written from right to left.
50
51 If you are in visual-mode, the value of display-direction is
52 reflected in mode-line: if it is nil "L2R" is displayed; if it is
53 non-nil "R2L" is displayed. In visual-mode, you can set
54 display-direction to nil by typing 'C-c <', and to t by typing
55 'C-c >'.
56
57 If you read a file (C-x C-f) which has the extension ".l2r", the
58 buffer automatically goes in visual-mode and display-direction is
59 set to nil. Likewise, if a file has the extension ".r2l", the
60 buffer automatically goes in visual-mode and display-direction is
61 set to t.
62
63
64 2. EDITING ARABIC TEXT
65
66 2.1 INPUT
67
68 In arabic-mode, you can input Arabic characters and Arabic digits
69 from keyboard. To input ASCII characters or ASCII digits, you
70 have to exit arabic-mode by hitting C-]. The translation table is
71 given below. When you are in Arabic-mode, you can see the
72 keyboard layout by C-z.
73
74 Please note that this table is by no means a fixed one --- it is
75 just a quick hack. Your suggestion on Arabic keyboard layout will
76 be greatly appreciated.
77
78
79 translate table in arabic-mode
80 ------------------------------
81 " isolated hamza
82 a~ madda above alif
83 a' hamza above alif
84 w' hamza above waaw
85 a'' hamza below alif
86 y' hamza above yaa
87 a alif
88 b baa
89 o taa marbuTa
90 t taa
91 c thaa
92 j jiim
93 H Haa
94 K khaa
95 d daal
96 x dhaal
97 r raa
98 z zaay
99 s siin
100 / shiin
101 S Saad
102 D Daad
103 T Taa
104 Z Zaa
105 ` ayn
106 G ghayn
107 f faa
108 q qaaf
109 k kaaf
110 l laam
111 m miim
112 n nuun
113 h haa
114 w waaw
115 A alif maqSura
116 y yaa
117 C chim (Farsi)
118 g gaaf (Farsi)
119 p paa (Farsi)
120 X zhaa (Farsi)
121 _ make connection
122 | cut connection
123
124
125 Appropriate ligature is automatically generated whenever a
126 character is input. Special ligature of laam + alif will be
127 generated whenever an alif is input on the left of a laam. If you
128 want to cut the connection between two adjacent Arabic characters,
129 type a `|' (vertical bar) at that point in arabic-mode. An input
130 of a character preceded by a `|' produces a glyph which is not
131 connected to its right adjacent. Typing a `_' (underscore)
132 connects the two characters at that point, if possible.
133
134 When display-direction is nil (i.e. lines are aligned to left),
135 the cursor stays at the same position after an Arabic character is
136 inserted. It moves to the right after an Arabic digit or an ASCII
137 character is inserted.
138
139 When display-direction is non-nil (i.e. lines are aligned to
140 right), the cursor moves to the left after an Arabic character is
141 inserted. It stays at the same position after an Arabic digit or
142 an ASCII character is inserted.
143
144
145 2.2 DELETION, KILL & YANK
146
147 Use C-d to delete the character under the cursor. If you are in
148 arabic-mode, the necessary ligature will be re-generated after the
149 character is deleted.
150
151 DEL key behave differently according to the value of
152 display-direction: if the value is nil (aligned to left), it
153 deletes a character on the left of the cursor; if the value is
154 non-nil (aligned to right), it deletes a character on the right of
155 the cursor. If the display direction and the input character
156 direction are the same, lastly input character can be deleted with
157 DEL key, no matter what the value of display-direction is.
158
159 M-d (arabic-kill-word), M-DEL (arabic-backward-kill-word), C-k
160 (arabic-kill-line) and C-w (arabic-kill-region) remove the
161 specified stretch of string and put it in kill-ring. M-w
162 (arabic-copy-region-as-kill) also puts the specified stretch of
163 string in kill-ring, but the original text is left unchanged.
164
165 The strings in kill ring can be reinserted in buffer by C-y
166 (arabic-yank) and M-y (arabic-yank-pop).
167
168 Make sure that you are in arabic-mode when you kill or yank
169 something, otherwise ligature is not maintained, or at the worst,
170 unexpected region will be deleted or a garbage string will be
171 inserted in the buffer.
172
173
174 2.3 CURSOR MOTION
175
176 The following cursor motion commands are supplied in visual-mode
177 and in arabic-mode to handle bi-directional texts easily. All
178 these commands accept an additional prefix numeric argument.
179
180
181 key command name function
182 -----------------------------------------------------------------
183 C-f visual-forward-char move the cursor visually
184 forward by 1 character
185
186 C-b visual-backward-char move the cursor visually
187 backward by 1 character
188
189 C-p visual-previous-line move the cursor up
190 by 1 line
191
192 C-n visual-next-line move the cursor down
193 by 1 line
194
195 C-a visual-beginning-of-line move the cursor to the
196 visual beginning of line
197
198 C-e visual-end-of-line move the cursor to the
199 visual end of line
200
201 M-f visual-forward-word move the cursor visually
202 forward by 1 word
203
204 M-b visual-backward-word move the cursor visually
205 backward by 1 word
206
207 M-< visual-beginning-of-buffer move the cursor to the
208 visual beginning of buffer
209
210 M-> visual-end-of-buffer move the cursor to the
211 visual end of buffer
212
213
214 Note that ordinary cursor motion commands (forward-char,
215 backward-char, etc.) behave according to the logical order of the
216 text, whilst the above commands behave according to the visual
217 order. Compare the difference of the two C-f commands. (You can
218 exit visual-mode by typing "C-c C-c".)
219
220
221 2.4 LR COMMANDS
222
223 Some of you may be confused by the words "forward" and "backward".
224 Here is a summary:
225
226
227 display-direction display-direction
228 is nil is non-nil
229 -------------------------------------------------
230 forward right left
231
232 backward left right
233
234
235 If you are using arrow keys to move the cursor, you may want to
236 move the cursor to left/right no matter what display-direction is.
237 Likewise, you may want the cursor to be put on the left-most
238 column when you hit C-a, and on the right-most column when you hit
239 C-e. In such cases, rewrite the key definitions in visual.el and
240 arabic.el with the following commands. These commands are called
241 "LR commands" because they act according to the absolute direction
242 (left or right) rather than relative direction (forward or
243 backward).
244
245
246 ** LR commands in visual-mode **
247
248 command name function
249 --------------------------------------------------------
250 visual-move-to-left-char move the cursor to left
251 by one character
252
253 visual-move-to-right-char move the cursor to right
254 by one character
255
256 visual-move-to-left-word move the cursor to left
257 by one word
258
259 visual-move-to-right-word move the cursor to right
260 by one word
261
262 visual-left-end-of-line move the cursor to the
263 leftmost column
264
265 visual-right-end-of-line move the cursor to the
266 rightmost column
267
268 visual-delete-left-char delete the character on
269 the left of visual point
270
271 visual-delete-right-char delete the character on
272 the right of visual point
273
274 visual-kill-left-word kill one word on the left
275 of visual point
276
277 visual-kill-right-word kill one word on the right
278 of visual point
279
280
281 ** LR commands in arabic-mode **
282
283 command name function
284 ----------------------------------------------------------
285 arabic-delete-left-char do visual-delete-left-char
286 and make Arabic ligature
287
288 arabic-delete-right-char do visual-delete-right-char
289 and make Arabic ligature
290
291 arabic-kill-left-word do visual-kill-left-word
292 and make Arabic ligature
293
294 arabic-kill-right-word do visual-kill-right-word
295 and make Arabic ligature
296
297
298 3. HARDCOPY
299
300 You can use m2ps to get a hardcopy of a file which contains arabic
301 characters. See m2ps.1 for detail. Note that input files to m2ps
302 must be written in *internal* coding system. To save the content of
303 a buffer, use the following command in Mule:
304
305 C-u C-x C-w _filename_ RET *internal* RET
306
307 Please note that the current version of m2ps does not support r2l
308 printing direction (flushright mode). If you try to print a file
309 which was created under r2l display direction, it will be printed
310 left-aligned. Furthermore, you may get wrong word order.
311
312 4. LIMITATIONS
313
314 There are many limitations in this release. We need your help.
315
316 4.1 NON-SPACING MARKS IN ARABIC
317
318 Only two non-spacing marks, i.e., madda and hamza, are available
319 in this release. Any other marks, e.g. fatHa (short 'a'), Damma
320 (short 'u'), kasra (short 'i'), shadda (doubling sign), sukuun (no
321 vowel sign), waSla (joining hamza), etc., cannot be displayed. It
322 seems that short vowels and waSla are not necessary to write
323 ordinary Arabic text, but shadda is often marked in Arabic
324 printings. Please let me know if shadda is really indispensable,
325 in that case I will try to implement shadda in some way.
326
327
328 4.2 FILE FORMAT
329
330 This package uses its own format (coding system) for file I/O.
331 You cannot read the files saved in other format, e.g., ISO 8859-6,
332 ISO 10646, UNICODE, ArabTeX, xaw, etc. As a matter of fact, I do
333 not know what format is mostly used in the world to save Arabic
334 texts. If you have texts saved in certain format and would like
335 to edit them with Mule, please send me the documentation of your
336 format. I will try to implement file I/O routine for that format.
337
338
339 4.3 MISCELLANEOUS LIMITATIONS
340
341 * Tab does not work if display-direction is non-nil.
342
343 * transpose commands and rectangle commands do not work in most cases.
344
345
346 5. ADDRESS
347
348 Bug reports and comments should be sent to this mailing list
349 (mule@etl.go.jp) or directly to me (ntakahas@etl.go.jp). Any
350 kinds of suggestions or demands are greatly appreciated.
351
352
353 TAKAHASHI Naoto
354 Electrotechnical Laboratory, Japan
355 ntakahas@etl.go.jp