543443 - Personas for RTL languages such as Arabic

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Theme, defect)

Description

[Djihed Afifi]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009102815 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.15
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009102815 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.15

In an Arabic Firefox, the interface is RTL rather than LTR. This means that
personas that were developed with an LTR interface in mind look rather odd in
Arabic.

This is because most Personas use the space that is not cluttered with buttons
Filing as requested in Bug #509415 .

(the right side) to show a prominent feature of the theme, such as the
decoration in the default blue persona, or the moon.

Thus, for RTL languages these images should be reversed to look stylistic as
intended.

This also applies to other RTL languages such as Hebrew and Farsi, I imagine.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Use Arabic Firefox with Arabic installation.
2. Notice the inverted interface. Install Personas.
3. Enable a persona that shows a feature on the right side.
Actual Results:  
The feature is hidden behind the buttons in the RTL interface.

Expected Results:  
Inverted image.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509415

Comment 1

[Djihed Afifi]

I inserted "Filing as requested in Bug #509415" in the wrong place. The full sentence should read:

"This is because most Personas use the space that is not cluttered with buttons (the right side) to show a prominent feature of the theme, such as the
decoration in the default blue persona, or the moon.
"

Comment 2

[OsamaKM]

Attachment: Mozilla-based browser with an Arabic interface shows how the menus aren't clear.

I attached a screenshot of how it looks like. That's just one example, but I've found many themes that seems ugly in RTL interfaces. It's probably a good thing to do to add an option to flip the theme that's checked by default in RTL interfaces.

It also would be amazing to make it possible to include two designs for themes, one for LTR and the other for RTL.

Comment 4

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

See also the mozdev bug for more information and ideas how this should be fixed. https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=18895


We are really need this for Firefox 4, even that it may require some API changes. Please prioritize this bug...

Comment 5

[RealName]

I'm not sure how simple is the solution technically, but I think it should be pretty easy:
Simply whenever an RTL version of Firefox is identified (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic, etc..), the Personas should be automatically HORIZONTALLY flipped.
I really hope that this issue will be fixed in the next release =]

Comment 6

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

(In reply to comment #5)
> I'm not sure how simple is the solution technically, but I think it should be
> pretty easy:
> Simply whenever an RTL version of Firefox is identified (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic,
> etc..), the Personas should be automatically HORIZONTALLY flipped.
> I really hope that this issue will be fixed in the next release =]

As we said before, it is not the best solution, as this will make every background with a logo or a text to appear mirrored, and this will make it even worse than as it is currently.

Comment 7

[RealName]

Oh, I didn't put text in mind.
Anyway, I don't really see another solution, hopefully something would be found.

btw Tomer can u please comment on bug #589418? (sorry 'bout the off-topic)

Comment 8

[Djihed Afifi]

Personas authors need to be aware of RTL, much like GUI writers need to be.

Give the option to the personas author to either upload their own image for RTL, or have it automatically flipped.

Comment 9

[ccc]

I agree with the last comment
What's going on with this bug? Is it going to be fixed one day?
At least give the option to horizontaly flip the persona

Comment 10

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

Please provide a fix with Firefox 5, as it currently make most of personas not functional to RTL users. 

It might be possible to provide a quick fix using CSS3 image flipping technique, although I am not sure if it is implemented on Gecko.

Comment 11

[Anas Husseini [:linostar]]

> Give the option to the personas author to either upload their own image for 
> RTL, or have it automatically flipped.

Not all personas authors are aware what RTL is and why it is needed, and I don't expect them to do. An alternative solution is to provide (restrictly in RTL Firefox perhaps) a button/checkbox beside each persona in the the personas window (next to the 'disable' and 'remove' buttons), enabling the user to horizontally flip it.

Comment 12

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> > Give the option to the personas author to either upload their own image for 
> > RTL, or have it automatically flipped.
> 
> Not all personas authors are aware what RTL is and why it is needed, and I
> don't expect them to do. An alternative solution is to provide (restrictly
> in RTL Firefox perhaps) a button/checkbox beside each persona in the the
> personas window (next to the 'disable' and 'remove' buttons), enabling the
> user to horizontally flip it.

I don't think this is a good choice for the user to make.  The persona might not make sense to flip, and we don't generally expose this type of direction selection decision to users.

I think the only sane way of going around this is to let authors make their theme RTL-aware, by either supplying an RTL version of the image or allowing Firefox to flip it with a flag or something.  I don't think that this is something which can be solved in an author-transparent way.

Comment 13

[Anas Husseini [:linostar]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> 
> I don't think this is a good choice for the user to make.  The persona might
> not make sense to flip, and we don't generally expose this type of direction
> selection decision to users.
> 
> I think the only sane way of going around this is to let authors make their
> theme RTL-aware, by either supplying an RTL version of the image or allowing
> Firefox to flip it with a flag or something.  I don't think that this is
> something which can be solved in an author-transparent way.

I see your point, but there is another question to be raised here. What will happen to the personas currently available at getpersonas.com? If we going to force personas authors from now on either to allow flipping or to provide an rtl version, then that will not affect the old personas we already have.

Comment 14

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Artists likely wouldn't understand what we're asking them, so a "mirror for RTL" checkbox should probably be part of the review process...

Comment 15

[Tomer Cohen :tomer]

(In reply to comment #14)
> Artists likely wouldn't understand what we're asking them, so a "mirror for
> RTL" checkbox should probably be part of the review process...
Simply mirroring won't do the job as there are designs that include text which should not get mirrored automatically. 

Personas authors may not understand what is RTL all about, but we could teach them like what we done previously for regular themes. 

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Making_Sure_Your_Theme_Works_with_RTL_Locales

Comment 16

[Anas Husseini [:linostar]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> 
> Personas authors may not understand what is RTL all about, but we could
> teach them like what we done previously for regular themes. 
> 
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en/
> Making_Sure_Your_Theme_Works_with_RTL_Locales

I daresay that's different, Tomer. That article targets developers and site designers. On the other hand, personas designers may very likely be non-technical people who use photoshop (or whatever desing tools) but without any web-design experience.

Comment 17

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #14)
> > Artists likely wouldn't understand what we're asking them, so a "mirror for
> > RTL" checkbox should probably be part of the review process...
> Simply mirroring won't do the job as there are designs that include text
> which should not get mirrored automatically.

Quite true. The reviewer wouldn't check "mirror for RTL" in this case.

Comment 18

[ccc]

I guess most persona makers wouldn't read additional instructions if they already
made a persona...
So explaining them about rtl won't really help.
I think it's better to give a fast solution (with the flip checkbox on the user side)... It can't harm anyone... worse case senario - not all personas would look
normally because of the text...It's not that critical, since most personas don't 
have any text...
And additionaly add instructions about rtl for authors... and let them upload ltr and rtl versions of a persona.

Comment 19

[Amiad]

I think that checkbox is best solution. We can't to depend on the developers that remember what is RTL languages.

Comment 20

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #13)
> I see your point, but there is another question to be raised here. What will
> happen to the personas currently available at getpersonas.com? If we going to
> force personas authors from now on either to allow flipping or to provide an
> rtl version, then that will not affect the old personas we already have.

Yes, unfortunately that is not a problem which can be solved in an automated way at all.

Comment 21

[Anas Husseini [:linostar]]

Here the design I have in my mind, based on the comments above. If there is no objection, I am going to write the patches to match the following:

patch #1 for getpersonas.com review form:

Add a mandatory select box with three radio buttons concerning the persona direction:
 a- non-flippable persona, don't flip it (it contains text or something that prevents mirroring)
 b- LTR persona, flip it (the header is left aligned, so flip the persona for RTL users)
 c- RTL persona, flip it (originally designed for RTL browsers, make it available for LTR browsers too)

if (b) or (c) is selected, another copy (mirrored) of the persona will be created. The two personas will be saved under the names <original-persona-name>-ltr and <original-persona-name>-rtl (there are other possibilities of marking the difference between the two copies).


patch #2 for firefox's persona component:

In case of LTR browser, the persona manager will load all personas except those which names end with "-rtl". On the other hand, RTL browsers will load all except those which names end with "-ltr". Old personas will be displayed in both cases because some personas may suit RTL browsers even without flipping, so we can't be sure about them.

We may also add a check box that enables RTL users to filter RTL personas in remote personas list (in the addon manager).

Comment 22

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Here the design I have in my mind, based on the comments above. If there is no
> objection, I am going to write the patches to match the following:
> 
> patch #1 for getpersonas.com review form:
> 
> Add a mandatory select box with three radio buttons concerning the persona
> direction:
>  a- non-flippable persona, don't flip it (it contains text or something that
> prevents mirroring)

I assume that this is the default value.

>  b- LTR persona, flip it (the header is left aligned, so flip the persona for
> RTL users)
>  c- RTL persona, flip it (originally designed for RTL browsers, make it
> available for LTR browsers too)
> 
> if (b) or (c) is selected, another copy (mirrored) of the persona will be
> created. The two personas will be saved under the names
> <original-persona-name>-ltr and <original-persona-name>-rtl (there are other
> possibilities of marking the difference between the two copies).
> 
> patch #2 for firefox's persona component:
> 
> In case of LTR browser, the persona manager will load all personas except those
> which names end with "-rtl". On the other hand, RTL browsers will load all
> except those which names end with "-ltr". Old personas will be displayed in
> both cases because some personas may suit RTL browsers even without flipping,
> so we can't be sure about them.

This seems like a good plan to me.

> We may also add a check box that enables RTL users to filter RTL personas in
> remote personas list (in the addon manager).

I'm not sure about this one, you should check it with Mossop and the UX people.

Comment 23

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