Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

08-07-2009 7:22 AM |

Hi guys, I work for a Microsoft Gold Partner company and we are looking into using Silverlight 3 to develop our next big hosted application.

 The one problem is, Silverlight does not support right to left text flow for languages that require it, such as Arabic.  This is a big problem for us as we need to support users who wish to have a localised version with right-to-left text flow.  I have researched and attempted to use the BiDi RTL controls from CodePlex but this just seems to be a horrible way of trying to support it, having to re-write every control that uses it!  As it stands now, new controls such as the DataForm don't have BiDi equivalents and when I tried to go into the DataForm sourcecode to change it to generate BiDi controls, I found that the control set doesn't even contain a ComboBox implementation at this time!

 I don't want to sound ungreatful for the hard work the team has put in implementing the BiDi controls, but I really need to know if Microsoft plans on providing a proper, fundamental RTL implementation like WPF currently has (FlowDirection).  Otherwise, many businesses like ours will not be able to take advantage of Silverlight.

 Does anyone have any idea if this might be come a reality in the near future?

Thanks in advance,

 James.

Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

08-07-2009 8:48 AM |

Did you check this:

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/alex_golesh/archive/2009/07/10/silverlight-3-hebrew-and-arabic-support.aspx

http://www.codeplex.com/SilverlightRTL

HTH

Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

08-07-2009 9:23 AM |

Thanks for your answer but both of these link to the BiDi controls which I've stated above I do NOT want to use.  There doesn't seem much point if there isn't a combobox either and the new controls that link into the kind of RIA stuff we need to do aren't supported.

 Anyone else? :)

Re: Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

08-10-2009 2:00 PM |

Thanks for the response :) Do you have any idea when the first beta for Silverlight 4 may become available and if there is any kind of rough timeframe for its release? Thanks again!

Re: Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

08-10-2009 2:16 PM |

It should be similar to Silverlight 3 where the Beta is at Mix in March and the actual release is about 6 months later.  I think there will be builds available for Silverlight insiders prior to the Beta though.

Re: Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

09-28-2009 5:27 PM |

I concluded from this discussion that we should exclude Silverlight when designing a solution required to be fully Arabic-enabled. Is this the right conclusion?

Re: Right-To-Left Text Support (Arabic)

11-06-2009 6:40 PM |

Is there any update on RTL support on silverlight or availability of silverlight 4 beta?