Hi,
I own an Israeli web site for DNN technology.
I regularly customize the build for each new DNN version so it will support Hebrew.
I am writing to inform you of developers' mistakes I often encounter which impede
codes/modules from becoming truly international.
Such mistakes deny Arab and Israeli users the chance to use DNN (a non existent
issue with Sharepoint).
1. Do not hard-code in your UI code (html css, etc.) left alignment.
Don't use align=left or dir=left.
Let the container set the alignment.
2. The core framework must add new attribute to supported locale
which describe the text alignment of that language.
For example, en-US will set this attribute to "ltr" (left to right) and Hebrew will
set this attribute to rtl. Then the container should ask the localization system for the
current language and set the dir=rtl to the appropriate value.
3. Use only unicode data!
Common mistake is setting DB field type to varchar or text.
These are ASCII fields. Always choose Nvarchar or Ntext.
4. Don't assume anything about the text's length.
Developers usually place some text in a table cell and set it's width to fixed
value (width="40px"...) assuming the text is short enough to fit into the cell.
Keep in mind that in a different language the same text might be much longer,
and then the table breaks...
I thank you for your attention.