Hebrew Passwords on WinXP - localization

What is the accepted way for entering passwords in Hebrew / Hebrew localised installations? Should the password entry dialog be right aligned with new characters appending on the left? like this:
|----------------------|
| |*******|
|----------------------|
Or do they generally left align with new characters inserted to the left? like this:
|----------------------|
||******* |
|----------------------|
Or is it some other layout?
I'm doing some mock-ups of a Hebrew version of the software I'm working on and want to know what the normal way to do this is so the mock-up is correct.

In gnome, the alignment of the password textbox automatically changes when the user switches the keyboard between Hebrew and English modes. This serves as another hint to whether the password being typed is in the right keyboard layout.

Taking a quick look around, it looks like a lot of applications translated to/written for Hebrew are RTL:
(source: allfacebook.com)
Can you ask whoever tasked you to create these mock-ups what they would prefer? Or make one of each and see which one looks/works better.
.02

Related

Issue with Delphi Menu

I am Using RAD Studio 2010 and I have problem in Menu text
There are Z and Y texts in my menu and I want to remove it
This will happen when I use Non English text
This is because of TMainMenu.AutoHotkeys. By default, the value of this property is maAutomatic, which means that the menu will automatically choose accelerator keys for your menu items.
For instance, in a typical English application, you might get a menu like this:
Notice the underlined characters. These are used to access the menu using the keyboard. For instance, to open the File menu, I can press Alt+F. And once the File menu is open, I can press the key corresponding to the underlined character in the caption of the menu item I wish to invoke.
For keyboard users like myself, such accelerators are extremely important. I use them all the time. I could use the mouse instead, but that would slow me down tremendously. (For instance, in the application in the screenshot, I am very used to press Alt+E, O to open the Sort Lines dialog box. That takes about 0.2 seconds. If I had to use the mouse, it would take much longer!)
Now, in your case, there aren't any Latin letters to underline, so instead the RTL adds these parentheses (with the Latin letter being the accelerator), so you still can access the menus using the keyboard.
I have very little experience with non-Latin-based versions of Windows, but I do believe menus like these are standard. If I were a Chinese or Arabic user (for instance), I think I would refuse to use an application without these. If I cannot access GUI menus and controls with the keyboard, I get really annoyed.
Still, if you insist, you can set AutoHotkeys to maManual.

iTextSharp - Pre filled Chinese characters in PDF do not come visible until textfield is focused

I am creating PDF with pre filled values in Chinese but when opening the PDF all the textfields containing Chinese text are empty. When focusing a textfield the Chinese text comes visible but is hided again when unfocusing the field. What could be the issue?
Please share some more info, as there could be more than one reason why the appearances aren't generated by iText.
A. The first reason is explained in the StackOverflow question "AcroForm values missing after flattening". In this case, the PDF contains a parameter that instructs iText not to generate appearances, which would explain why you don't see any value up until you click the field, in which case the viewer will create them.
B. The second reason is explained in section 8.3.3 (entitled "Text fields and fonts") of my book. In this case, the parameter in the PDF doesn't prevent the creation of field appearances, but iText fails to do so because you're not providing a font that knows how to display the Chinese characters.
See for instance figure 8.3 and 8.4 of the book.
In figure 8.3, you see that Chinese text isn't displayed in the upper window. By fixing the form (using two different strategies), the Chinese text appears in the lower two windows. Note that the Chinese text won't appear in all viewers in the case of the middle window.
In figure 8.4, you see that Korean text isn't displayed in the upper window, nor in the third window. In all other windows, different strategies were used to fix this problem:
It would lead us too far to discuss all the different strategies in an answer on SO. Instead, please take a look at the TextFontFields example (for the C# version, please take a look at the ported examples). My guess is that you'll benefit most from the AddSubstitutionFont() method, provided that you use a font of which a subset will be embedded in the document (in the example arialuni.ttf is used).
In case of A., the phenomenon also concerns other languages. In case of B., the parameter is correct, but you're not providing a font that can be used to generate the appearance.

code that does what the home button is supposed to do in a line of text

I have an arabic line with english letters in it.
Ex: أنا في abcd البيت
I opened notepad. I started writing.
What I wanted to write is I'm at abcd home but what you see now (left to right) is at I'm abcd home
To fix this, I click anywhere on that line. I press the HOME button. You'll see the cursor moving to the beginning of the arabic word that to the left of the english word. I right click, choose INSERT UNICODE CONTROL CHARACTER then I choose RLE.
When i do that, the reads I'm at abcd home. It's fixed.
If you right click again and choose SHOW UNICODE CONTROL CHARACTER. you'll see that the very first "character" is the unicode character I inserted.
I wish to automate this process.
How do I do that? :D
I can tell you that RLE is represented as \u202B
Thanx
There's no very easy way to automate the process, but there are a couple of things that you can try:
Press Ctrl-Shift on the right-hand side of your keyboard. This will work in Notepad and in many other programs on Windows: Word, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome. It may work in Firefox, too, but if it doesn't, use Ctrl-Shift-X to set right-to-left direction in Firefox. Note that this will correct the display of the text and the cursor movement for you while you are writing it, but not necessarily for the people to whom you send this text.
Use the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to add the RLE character to your keyboard. This program will let you create a new keyboard layout that you will be able to use in all the programs. Load the keyboard layout that you are currently using, find a key that is not assigned to any character and assign the RLE to it. Note that if you use RLE, you must also use the PDF character (U+202C) in the end of the right-to-left text, so assign this to some key, too (this is similar to writing <span dir="rtl">أنا في abcd البيت<span> in HTML—you must use the closing tag). This will fix your text, although it's tricky. Also, note that some websites remove characters like RLE when you try to post on them - Facebook and Twitter do this, for example.
Finally, note that this problem is unique to plain text. If you use a real word processor, like MS-Word or LibreOffice, or write your text as HTML with proper dir attributes, then it's a lot easier, but you'll have to store and send your text in these formats.

Special characters in Xcode look different in edit and view modes

I want to use a special character on an iOS button. When I insert it from special characters collection located in Edit/Special Characters menu it looks like this:
But after I exit the edit mode or run the app on device the character turns into this:
It looks like it uses different font. Is there a way to fix it?
Open up the character viewer (you may need to enable this in the Settings / Language)
You can inspect the arrows in here, and then check the font variations.
Once you've located the font you want, apply that to the label. I suspect you want Lucida Grande Bold.

Keyboard recreation for security reason

I need to recreate custom keyboard with four levels: lowercase, uppercase, special characters and special characters when shift is pressed. I do not want to create plist file where will be placed all characters for each level. I am looking for the solution to get it using native framework.
What is the way to get characters set for each level?
Characters set should depend on language. Lets say German layout is different to UK layout.
Answer to the “Why?” question: For security reason as written in iOS Security guid at p.20 it is better to present custom keyboard to the users. As my text field have functionality hide/show password my UITextView can be in the mode not secure.
Once enabled, the extension will be used for any text field except the
passcode input and any secure text view.

Resources