Some languages such as “Arabic” is right to left, although there is right align, some symbols such as commas and brackets if was written at the end of the sentence it is written at the left not the right as it suppose to + the writing indicator is at the left not at the right too
also when using bullet or number list, it stay at the left and only the text change to the right
++ If there is an option to make the default Align RTL or LTR would be a great add
HOW COULD IT BE DONE
There should be an option “if not automatic” to change writing from LTR to RTL
REAL WORLD USE CASES
It will help to be more international as sometimes I have to write in Arabic, but sometimes if it is too long it’s hard to use “Anytype” as I have to change the align each Object and punctuation and symbols are weird
Hi @osama, thanks for the suggestion! RTL is partially supported. I don’t use RTL’s myself, so I can’t say for sure, but I believe the alignment is set based on the language used to type, after which you can adjust the alignment manually using the styling options.
I’m not sure if what you describe is maybe more a bug, but I like your suggestion to allow the user to set the default alignment based on their preference, so let’s keep this request open as is
Hello everyone, I’m new here and I have a quick question. I’m having trouble changing the writing direction to RTL (right-to-left). I’ve been able to align the layout to the right, but the actual writing remains left-to-right. Can anyone help me with this issue? Thank you in advance!
May we have up-to-down then right to left language support as well?
While not necessary, square based characters can go any direction… but it would be great if we can have Traditional Chinese vertically aligned and RTL like in Taiwan / Hong Kong published books.
Vertical alignment might conflict with the current UI design. Normally this is implemented from identifying vertical page border to continue text on next vertical line; but there is no such thing in Anytype. One way to do is by auto-lining with screen size. Then horizontal scroll to view text overloaded to left side of the screen.
If it is too difficult to have everything (From title to relation) vertical, then perhaps a vertical display block.
PS. Sorry if this is beyond the scope of the original simple RTL language support.
This is urgently needed, imagine the pain you get if typing English and it gets layed out as right-to-left.
That’s how it feels with typing Arabic in a left-to-right manner.
Quick note to the devs.
I was browsing the code in the any-block repo. And by the looks of things a true automatic RTL support will need a new alignment option in the direction enum for every block.
Take a look here if my understanding is correct then the only way right now for blocks to be RTL is if the user explicitly changes them.
This is unwanted for most users because most arabic users will also write notes in English.
My proposed solution:
add a new direction option with the name auto that behaves just like the HTML dir = auto
add a global setting for users to set their preferred direction either LTT, RTL or the default auto.
RTL Support on the desktop app (Windows, Linux, and probably Mac too but I don’t use Mac so I don’t know for sure).
There’s already RTL support on mobile but I think it’s built in. RTL support and maybe improvements to the Hebrew font in the desktop app would be a huge improvement to my experience. sometimes I need to write some of my objects or relations in Hebrew, and the lack of RTL support and the font makes it look bad.
HOW COULD IT BE DONE
Recognise text that needs RTL support and apply RTL on it.
Add support for Hebrew in the font or replace the fallback font to something that will look a little bit more readable and better.
REAL WORLD USE CASES
Any text in Hebrew, Arabic, and some more languges will look better and will be easier to read and understand, using the app in my daily life will be easier and smoother.
RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVES
Doesn’t even need to be automatic, can be a button that will switch the direction of the text manually.
I’m sorry, but the problem Anytype has with right-to-left languages is much greater than that! To write a text in right-to-left, we need two options. One of them is alignment, which is already in the software, but it only changes the alignment of the text. But more importantly, there is an option that changes the text direction. Personally, most of the time, the text I write is in Persian, but I also use some English names or technical terms in it, which is practically impossible without the option of “right-to-left text direction”. Because it’s true that alignment is right-to-left, but the structure of the text is still left-to-right, so the phrases get mixed up and the words get swapped!
Many software like Microsoft Word have two separate options to solve each of these problems. But even if a software does not have an option to change the text direction and only has an option for alignment, usually by pressing Ctrl+Shift on the right side of the keyboard, you can make the text direction right-to-left. But in Anytype, unfortunately, this method does not work either.
In the picture below, you can see an example of “using an English word in a Persian text” and the effect of alignment and text direction on it. For better understanding, they are color coded.
Also, the automatic mode does not always solve the problem. Because this mode guesses whether the text is “LTR” or “RTL” based on the language of the first word. But in the case of a mixed Persian-English text, the first word may be English (which is LTR), but the text is readable from right to left.
Just wanted to give this a little bump because I saw the matter acknowledged on the townhall meeting. Knowing that this is coming is very exciting, and will be a major draw for Notion users.
To the best of my knowledge, in this field of software only Obsidian supports RTL, and it does that only through plugins.
And for what its worth, this is probably the one thing that can bring Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew speakers together these days.
