Why Adobe doesn't support ePub properly?

[carmelra]

How can it be that Adobe, one of the standard's biggest supporters, doesn't support ePub 2 properly?

I'm referring to Adobe Digital Editions lack of support in dir="rtl" attribute and direction:rtl CSS property.

According to the specs (1.3.5):
A conforming Reading System must render all OPS CSS 2.0 required subset properties.

ADE fail to do it...

Please refer also to the ePub conform group:
http://code.google.com/p/epub-conform/

[Toxaris]

Market. The main market focus was on the US and now Europe. Most languages uses left-to-right, so that is their main focus.
There are some threads about it around the forum. On some readers you can load alternative firmware which solve the problem.

I am not sure that the latest version of ADE still does not support it. Even if it does, the e-reader manufacturers must create a firmware update to put it on the reader. Not all reader manufacturers are willing to do that.

[DiapDealer]

Besides... do we really want to count the ways in which all of the various epub readers are not in compliance with epub specs?

It would be a fairly long and involved list.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by carmelra

I'm referring to Adobe Digital Editions lack of support in dir="rtl" attribute and direction:rtl CSS property.

For normal text, it doesn't even need to suppor that, just bidirectional Unicode:

[Latin: ABC] [Hebrew: DEF] [Latin: GHI]

should be rendered as (assuming "DEF" are actually Hebrew characters):

ABC FED GHI

because the Unicode characters have an implicit direction "built-in", no need to use CSS properties to override that (normally).

Browsers tend to do it properly, for instance:

Hebrew, שיר השירים, Shir ha-Shirim

where I wrote & #1513; (ש, shin) first and & #1501; (ם, mem) last.

[HarryT]

Am I right in thinking that there are also Unicode characters for switching to RTL or LTR directions?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Am I right in thinking that there are also Unicode characters for switching to RTL or LTR directions?

I think so.

For further reading: Internationalization Best Practices: Handling Right-to-left Scripts in XHTML and HTML Content

[JeremyR]

Because, epub isn't about being a superior format for e-books, it's about giving Adobe control over the e-book market. So as far as they are concerned, they've done enough...

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Because, epub isn't about being a superior format for e-books, it's about giving Adobe control over the e-book market. So as far as they are concerned, they've done enough...

Adobe though isn't the primary force behind ePub. They just chose it as a starting point for their DRM, since it would take the DRM easily.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Besides... do we really want to count the ways in which all of the various epub readers are not in compliance with epub specs?

It would be a fairly long and involved list.

Sure we want it. Today, every Reading System that manage to open an epub file and display it in one way or another immediately claim that it supports the standard. It is ridiculous.

I think there should be a conformance tool that will check the level of the Reading System support in the standard. Only Reading System that will pass the test will be given a permission to claim for full support in the standard. It should be an official tool and companies should be encouraged to get this official approval.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by carmelra

Only Reading System that will pass the test will be given a permission to claim for full support in the standard. It should be an official tool and companies should be encouraged to get this official approval.

But since so many companies don't fully comply, how could you ever encourage them to get official approval?

[Peter Sorotokin]

Originally Posted by carmelra

How can it be that Adobe, one of the standard's biggest supporters, doesn't support ePub 2 properly?

I'm referring to Adobe Digital Editions lack of support in dir="rtl" attribute and direction:rtl CSS property.

We recognize still have lots and lots of work to do to handle EPUB properly, but we only have limited resources.

[carmelra]

Originally Posted by Peter Sorotokin

We recognize still have lots and lots of work to do to handle EPUB properly, but we only have limited resources.

Hi Peter,

Thank you for this reply.
I noticed that you got similar "complains" in your developer's blog back in 2007

More than three years passed and it seems like there is no improvement with this issue. This is very disappointing.
I understand the lack of resources problem and the need to prioritize you tasks. However, please note that ADE displays the text properly (even when it's RTL) in the TOC section as well as in the book title section but not in the main text area. It looks like nobody really try to figure out what should be fixed there... Maybe it's not such a big deal and can be fixed much easier than expected

Since Adobe's SDK is being used by many companies in many applications and devices, the result is that Arabic and Hebrew are not being supported by many reading systems.
Please let me know if I can be of any assistance (QA, evaluations, samples, etc.) in dealing with this issue.
Thank you.