Aura Kobo book titles in Arabic

[tshering]

@GeoffR
Implementing replace_utf8chars might be less work than building the keyboard patches as you do it now (and users could easily make there own keyboard patches). For completeness I mention that replace_utf8chars writes for each character 4 bytes that contain the utf8 representation (if the utf8 representation is shorter than 4 bytes, zero bytes are appended on the right side).

[pickyaxe]

hmm, if we're going by standard hebrew qwerty, it'd be:

ROW 1:
q = @ (actually it's a forward slash, but I'd rather have the At sign)
w = . (actually it's an apostrophe, see above)
e = ק U+05E7
r = ר U+05E8
t = א U+05D0
y = ט U+05D8
u = ו U+05D5
i = ן U+05DF
o = ם U+05DD
p = פ U+05E4
- = - (no change)

ROW 2:
a = ש U+05E9
s = ד U+05D3
d = ג U+05D2
f = כ U+05DB
g = ע U+05E2
h = י U+05D9
j = ח U+05D7
k = ל U+05DC
l = ך U+05DA
@ = ף U+05E3
_ = _ (no change)

ROW 3:
z = ז U+05D6
x = ס U+05E1
c = ב U+05D1
v = ה U+05D4
b = נ U+05E0
n = מ U+05DE
m = צ U+05E6
, = ת U+05EA
. = ץ U+05E5

with this layout there's no place for a comma, if you can put it instead of Shift or ".com" it would be great (there's absolutely no use for Shift in Hebrew, not even diacritics). of course not necessary, since it's probably also in the symbol section ("#&+").

thanks a lot, again.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by pickyaxe

with this layout there's no place for a comma, if you can put it instead of Shift or ".com" it would be great (there's absolutely no use for Shift in Hebrew, not even diacritics). of course not necessary, since it's probably also in the symbol section ("#&+").

I've posted a patch for formware 3.12.1 in the developer's forum: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=24

I added the comma, apostrophe, and slash too:

[pickyaxe]

Forgot to say thanks - so a big thank you for doing it so quickly. though I have no way to test this yet as my device. I'll report here after I've tried it.

[mamado]

For completeness, part of the patch (book titles) broke in 3.15.0, to fix it one will need to use an extra patch from tshering, check here for details.

[ihabb]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I have a patch for firmware 3.12.1 that fixes the Arabic title problem by changing the title font style from italic to normal. See this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=17

Is there an updated Arabic title patch for version 3.19.5761. I get an error when I try to install: "replace_string address beyond end of input file". I have
tried to insert it in each of files: libadobe.so, libnickel.so.1.0.0, librmsdk.so.1.0.0 and it all generated same error. Your help is much appreciated.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by ihabb

Is there an updated Arabic title patch for version 3.19.5761. I get an error when I try to install: "replace_string address beyond end of input file". I have
tried to insert it in each of files: libadobe.so, libnickel.so.1.0.0, librmsdk.so.1.0.0 and it all generated same error. Your help is much appreciated.

There are updated patches for firmware 3.19.5761 including Arabic Keyboard in the attachment to post #1 in the Instructions for patching firmware 3.19.5761 thread.

[ihabb]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

There are updated patches for firmware 3.19.5761 including Arabic Keyboard in the attachment to post #1 in the Instructions for patching firmware 3.19.5761 thread.

Thank you for your reply. I wanted to port patch regarding Arabic book titles (not necessarily keyboard patch). Particularly one you provided in following post, where book titles font style is changed from italic to normal:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=17

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by ihabb

Thank you for your reply. I wanted to port patch regarding Arabic book titles (not necessarily keyboard patch). Particularly one you provided in following post, where book titles font style is changed from italic to normal:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...1&postcount=17

Sorry, I completely misread your post.

I wasn't able to find how to remove the italics from the book titles in later firmware, I think others might have found a different way to solve the problem, maybe by installing a font that has italic arabic glyphs defined?, but I don't know how it works. I noticed this post by tshering for example.

[GeoffR]

OK the solution is actually quite simple, there is no need for a patch.

I just tried modifying a font by adding the Arabic glyphs from the Regular/Bold variants to the Italic/BoldItalic variants, and now the Arabic book titles are displayed on my Glo (firmware 3.19.5761).

[tshering]

See also these two approaches:

• Non-italic book titles and so on, access to Japanese keyboard
• Modification for Bad Eyes FW 3.19.5761

[GeoffR]

I'll just describe what I did to get Arabic book titles showing in the device library on my Glo (firmware 3.19.5761), because it might not work with all fonts:

I used the free DejaVu Sans font

1. Open DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf in fontforge
2. Use the Merge Fonts function to merge DejaVuSans.ttf
3. Change PS Names > Fontname from DejaVuSans-Oblique to DejaVuSans-Italic
4. Change PS Names > Name For Humans from "DejaVu Sans Oblique" to "DejaVu Sans Italic"
5. File > Generate Fonts to generate DejaVuSans-Italic.ttf

6. Open DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf in fontforge
7. Use the Merge Fonts function to merge DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf
8. Change PS Names > Fontname from DejaVuSans-BoldOblique to DejaVuSans-BoldItalic
9. Change PS Names > Name For Humans from "DejaVu Sans Bold Oblique" to "DejaVu Sans Bold Italic"
10. Change TTF Names > Styles (Subfamily) from Bold Oblique to BoldItalic
11. File > Generate Fonts to generate DejaVuSans-BoldItalic.ttf

(I'm not sure if all of those steps are strictly necessary, but that is what I did.)

Then just sideload the DejaVuSans.ttf DejaVuSans-Italic.ttf DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf DejaVuSans-BoldItalic.ttf as usual and reboot the device. (Note that immediately after booting, the Arabic titles will still show as squares until a book is opened causing the extra fonts to be loaded.)

Edit: If anyone knows of a free font that has Arabic glyphs already included in the Italic variants, then it would be much simpler just to sideload that font.

[GeoffR]

And here is a much simpler solution: Just sideload the free Amiri font (I used amiri-0.108.zip) which has Italic Arabic glyphs, renaming the files:

amiri-regular.ttf --> Amiri-Regular.ttf
amiri-slanted.ttf --> Amiri-Italic.ttf
amiri-bold.ttf --> Amiri-Bold.ttf
amiri-boldslanted.ttf --> Amiri-BoldItalic.ttf

That is all, no patching or font modification needed (for firmware 3.19.5761 at least.)

Edit: Note that this font displays the book titles in bold because it has incorrect PANOSE weights. That would need to be fixed if you want to use it for reading KePubs, but it seems to work okay in the ePub reader.

[ihabb]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

And here is a much simpler solution: Just sideload the free Amiri font (I used amiri-0.108.zip) which has Italic Arabic glyphs, renaming the files:

amiri-regular.ttf --> Amiri-Regular.ttf
amiri-slanted.ttf --> Amiri-Italic.ttf
amiri-bold.ttf --> Amiri-Bold.ttf
amiri-boldslanted.ttf --> Amiri-BoldItalic.ttf

That is all, no patching or font modification needed (for firmware 3.19.5761 at least.)

Edit: Note that this font displays the book titles in bold because it has incorrect PANOSE weights. That would need to be fixed if you want to use it for reading KePubs, but it seems to work okay in the ePub reader.

This worked and it's simple. Thank you for your help and all the useful information.