ASP 2005 Localization Issue

[netasp]

Hello,
I was wondering, how is done for languages that read Top-Bottom or
Right-to-Left? is there away around that or does it have to be a complete
redesign?
because as you know, all controls would have to be shifted either to
Top-to-Bottom or starting from Right-To-Left?

thanks

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hello Netasp,

Regarding on the question you mentioned, it is called BIDI text
manipulation in internationalization. Based on my experience, for bidi text
rendering in web application, it is mostly rely on the html content and
client-side browser support. And ASP.NET or other server-side technology
hasn't much control on this.

For web application pages which will display BIDI text, we should take care
of the following points:

1. In our server-side application code, always use unicode to store those
BIDI text

2. In web page content(html), use those bidi specifric attribute to specify
how to text will display. e.g:

<span dir="rtl" ................</span>

You can find most information about BIDI text processing in the following
I18N portal site:

#Bidirectional text
http://www.w3.org/International/resource-index#bidi

Meanwhile, I'll discuss with some other globaldev engineers to see whether
there're any other more specific support in .net/ASP.NET. I'll inform you
when I get any update.
Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead

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[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi Netasp,

Have you got any further ideas on this thread?

Here are some further information I've got from some other global dev
engineers:
#for VS IDE support and programming guidelines:
In Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, you can create ASP.NET applications by
using either Microsoft Visual Basic .NET or Microsoft Visual C# .NET. The
guidelines that you should follow are basically the same as those you have
just seen for mirroring Web content. When you design Arabic Web Forms
pages, the best way to make text flow from right to left is to use the DIR
attribute. As with Web content, this attribute is usually placed in the
<HTMLtag or the <BODYtag. Controls and HTML elements on the page then
inherit the specified direction.

You can set the DIR attribute at a DOCUMENT object level. All the controls
on the form will inherit the same settings. However, the DIR attribute can
be used individually with other tags such as <TABLEand in Web Forms
controls, as in the following example, which allows items to be displayed
from right to left:

<TABLE dir="rtl" ...>

<asp:TextBox dir="rtl" ...>

#for general resource on developing application that display bidi text
**some slides from some MS localization engineers:

http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...4-96b2-4559295
43124/Developing%20Arabic%20Applications%20in%20VS%20200 5.ppt,
**public reference on developing middleeast specific software:

http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/msdn
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/...icsupp.aspx#22
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/g...ror.mspx#EWIAC

BTW, if you have interests, you can have a look at the following book:

"Developing International Software / Dr. International-- 2nd ed"

and there's a chapter there about bidi in asp.net.
Hope these also help you some.
Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.