Right-to-left language support

Details about configuring Vitalware for Right-to-left language support can be found here.

Enhanced support for languages, including right-to-left (RTL) languages, was introduced with Vitalware 2.1.02. Arabic and Hebrew scripts are supported, as are two additional left-to-right (LTR) languages, Greek and French (Canadian). Fourteen languages are now supported in Vitalware:

  • English & English (US)
  • Arabic
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • French & French (CA)
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Italian
  • Norwegian
  • Polish
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Finnish

Switching between LTR and RTL languages is dynamic and does not require Vitalware to be restarted - the user interface automatically adjusts to suit the language selected. For example, selecting Arabic will result in the Menu bar moving to the right side of the module window and all controls being mirrored. The image below shows the Person tab of the Parties module with Shortcuts enabled:

RTL

This image shows the same tab with Arabic selected:

RTL

As you can see, the layout of the various controls is mirrored, even down to the module Title bar. Many of the images used in Vitalware (e.g. on buttons, menus, etc.) have been altered to suit RTL languages. In some cases a new image has been constructed to ensure an authentic user experience. For example, the What's this help? image contains a reversed question mark in the Arabic version as this is how question marks are displayed in Arabic.

All the data controls in Vitalware 2.1.02 have been replaced with Unicode versions, which allows Vitalware to determine the character set used to store information and adjust the display to show characters correctly. Whether you use UTF-8 or ISO-8859-6 (Arabic) as your data storage encoding, the display will adjust to show the characters correctly.

Note: It may be necessary to install additional fonts on your computer to ensure that all characters can be displayed. Windows 2000 and Windows XP, for example, require the installation of right-to-left language files in order for Arabic and Hebrew characters to be shown).

Vitalware's HTML editor supports RTL orientation.

Windows configuration

In order to display RTL based characters correctly and to install the bidi algorithm used for data entry and display, it may be necessary to add RTL language files to your Windows installation. Details on how to install the RTL language files are given here.

Once the correct language files are installed, it may be necessary to configure Windows to allow data entry in multiple languages. This involves adding a keyboard layout for the language in which you wish to enter data. Details are given here.