1*arabic.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2005 Mar 29 2 3 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Nadim Shaikli 5 6 7Arabic Language support (options & mappings) for Vim *Arabic* 8 9{Vi does not have any of these commands} 10 11 *E800* 12In order to use right-to-left and Arabic mapping support, it is 13necessary to compile VIM with the |+arabic| feature. 14 15These functions have been created by Nadim Shaikli <nadim-at-arabeyes.org> 16 17It is best to view this file with these settings within VIM's GUI: > 18 19 :set encoding=utf-8 20 :set arabicshape 21 22 23Introduction 24------------ 25Arabic is a rather demanding language in which a number of special 26features are required. Characters are right-to-left oriented and 27ought to appear as such on the screen (i.e. from right to left). 28Arabic also requires shaping of its characters, meaning the same 29character has a different visual form based on its relative location 30within a word (initial, medial, final or stand-alone). Arabic also 31requires two different forms of combining and the ability, in 32certain instances, to either superimpose up to two characters on top 33of another (composing) or the actual substitution of two characters 34into one (combining). Lastly, to display Arabic properly one will 35require not only ISO-8859-6 (U+0600-U+06FF) fonts, but will also 36require Presentation Form-B (U+FE70-U+FEFF) fonts both of which are 37subsets within a so-called ISO-10646-1 font. 38 39The commands, prompts and help files are not in Arabic, therefore 40the user interface remains the standard Vi interface. 41 42 43Highlights 44---------- 45o Editing left-to-right files as in the original VIM hasn't changed. 46 47o Viewing and editing files in right-to-left windows. File 48 orientation is per window, so it is possible to view the same 49 file in right-to-left and left-to-right modes, simultaneously. 50 51o No special terminal with right-to-left capabilities is required. 52 The right-to-left changes are completely hardware independent. 53 Only Arabic fonts are necessary. 54 55o Compatible with the original VIM. Almost all features work in 56 right-to-left mode (there are liable to be bugs). 57 58o Changing keyboard mapping and reverse insert modes using a single 59 command. 60 61o Toggling complete Arabic support via a single command. 62 63o While in Arabic mode, numbers are entered from left to right. Upon 64 entering a none number character, that character will be inserted 65 just into the left of the last number. 66 67o Arabic keymapping on the command line in reverse insert mode. 68 69o Proper Bidirectional functionality is possible given VIM is 70 started within a Bidi capable terminal emulator. 71 72 73Arabic Fonts *arabicfonts* 74------------ 75 76VIM requires monospaced fonts of which there are many out there. 77Arabic requires ISO-8859-6 as well as Presentation Form-B fonts 78(without Form-B, Arabic will _NOT_ be usable). It is highly 79recommended that users search for so-called 'ISO-10646-1' fonts. 80Do an Internet search or check www.arabeyes.org for further 81info on where to attain the necessary Arabic fonts. 82 83 84Font Installation 85----------------- 86 87o Installation of fonts for X Window systems (Unix/Linux) 88 89 Depending on your system, copy your_ARABIC_FONT file into a 90 directory of your choice. Change to the directory containing 91 the Arabic fonts and execute the following commands: 92 93 % mkfontdir 94 % xset +fp path_name_of_arabic_fonts_directory 95 96 97Usage 98----- 99Prior to the actual usage of Arabic within VIM, a number of settings 100need to be accounted for and invoked. 101 102o Setting the Arabic fonts 103 104 + For VIM GUI set the 'guifont' to your_ARABIC_FONT. This is done 105 by entering the following command in the VIM window. 106> 107 :set guifont=your_ARABIC_FONT 108< 109 NOTE: the string 'your_ARABIC_FONT' is used to denote a complete 110 font name akin to that used in Linux/Unix systems. 111 (e.g. -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1) 112 113 You can append the 'guifont' set command to your .vimrc file 114 in order to get the same above noted results. In other words, 115 you can include ':set guifont=your_ARABIC_FONT' to your .vimrc 116 file. 117 118 + Under the X Window environment, you can also start VIM with 119 '-fn your_ARABIC_FONT' option. 120 121o Setting the appropriate character Encoding 122 To enable the correct Arabic encoding the following command needs 123 to be appended, 124> 125 :set encoding=utf-8 126< 127 to your .vimrc file (entering the command manually into you VIM 128 window is highly discouraged). In short, include ':set 129 encoding=utf-8' to your .vimrc file. 130 131 Attempts to use Arabic without UTF-8 will result the following 132 warning message, 133 134 *W17* > 135 Arabic requires UTF-8, do ':set encoding=utf-8' 136 137o Enable Arabic settings [short-cut] 138 139 In order to simplify and streamline things, you can either invoke 140 VIM with the command-line option, 141 142 % vim -A my_utf8_arabic_file ... 143 144 or enable 'arabic' via the following command within VIM 145> 146 :set arabic 147< 148 The two above noted possible invocations are the preferred manner 149 in which users are instructed to proceed. Baring an enabled 'termbidi' 150 setting, both command options: 151 152 1. set the appropriate keymap 153 2. enable the deletion of a single combined pair character 154 3. enable rightleft mode 155 4. enable rightleftcmd mode (affecting the command-line) 156 5. enable arabicshape mode (do visual character alterations) 157 158 You may also append the command to your .vimrc file and simply 159 include ':set arabic' to it. 160 161 You are also capable of disabling Arabic support via 162> 163 :set noarabic 164< 165 which resets everything that the command had enabled without touching 166 the global settings as they could affect other possible open buffers. 167 In short the 'noarabic' command, 168 169 1. resets to the alternate keymap 170 2. disables the deletion of a single combined pair character 171 3. disables rightleft mode 172 173 NOTE: the 'arabic' command takes into consideration 'termbidi' for 174 possible external bi-directional (bidi) support from the 175 terminal ("mlterm" for instance offers such support). 176 'termbidi', if available, is superior to rightleft support 177 and its support is preferred due to its level of offerings. 178 'arabic' when 'termbidi' is enabled only sets the keymap. 179 180 If, on the other hand, you'd like to be verbose and explicit and 181 are opting not to use the 'arabic' short-cut command, here's what 182 is needed (i.e. if you use ':set arabic' you can skip this section) - 183 184 + Arabic Keymapping Activation 185 186 To activate the Arabic keymap (i.e. to remap your English/Latin 187 keyboard to look-n-feel like a standard Arabic one), set the 188 'keymap' command to "arabic". This is done by entering 189> 190 :set keymap=arabic 191< 192 in your VIM window. You can also append the 'keymap' set command to 193 your .vimrc file. In other words, you can include ':set keymap=arabic' 194 to your .vimrc file. 195 196 To turn toggle (or switch) your keymapping between Arabic and the 197 default mapping (English), it is advised that users use the 'CTRL-^' 198 key press while in insert (or add/replace) mode. The command-line 199 will display your current mapping by displaying an "Arabic" string 200 next to your insertion mode (e.g. -- INSERT Arabic --) indicating 201 your current keymap. 202 203 + Arabic deletion of a combined pair character 204 205 By default VIM has the 'delcombine' option disabled. This option 206 allows the deletion of ALEF in a LAM_ALEF (LAA) combined character 207 and still retain the LAM (i.e. it reverts to treating the combined 208 character as its natural two characters form -- this also pertains 209 to harakat and their combined forms). You can enable this option 210 by entering 211> 212 :set delcombine 213< 214 in our VIM window. You can also append the 'delcombine' set command 215 to your .vimrc file. In other words, you can include ':set delcombine' 216 to your .vimrc file. 217 218 + Arabic right-to-left Mode 219 220 By default VIM starts in Left-to-right mode. 'rightleft' is the 221 command that allows one to alter a window's orientation - that can 222 be accomplished via, 223 224 - Toggling between left-to-right and right-to-left modes is 225 accomplished through ':set rightleft' and ':set norightleft'. 226 227 - While in Left-to-right mode, enter ':set rl' in the command line 228 ('rl' is the abbreviation for rightleft). 229 230 - Put the ':set rl' line in your '.vimrc' file to start Vim in 231 right-to-left mode permanently. 232 233 + Arabic right-to-left command-line Mode 234 235 For certain commands the editing can be done in right-to-left mode. 236 Currently this is only applicable to search commands. 237 238 This is controlled with the 'rightleftcmd' option. The default is 239 "search", which means that windows in which 'rightleft' is set will 240 edit search commands in right-left mode. To disable this behavior, 241> 242 :set rightleftcmd= 243< 244 To enable right-left editing of search commands again, 245> 246 :set rightleftcmd& 247< 248 + Arabic Shaping Mode 249 250 To activate the required visual characters alterations (shaping, 251 composing, combining) which the Arabic language requires, enable 252 the 'arabicshape' command. This is done by entering 253> 254 :set arabicshape 255< 256 in our VIM window. You can also append the 'arabicshape' set 257 command to your .vimrc file. In other words, you can include 258 ':set arabicshape' to your .vimrc file. 259 260 261Keymap/Keyboard *arabickeymap* 262--------------- 263 264The character/letter encoding used in VIM is the standard UTF-8. 265It is widely discouraged that any other encoding be used or even 266attempted. 267 268Note: UTF-8 is an all encompassing encoding and as such is 269 the only supported (and encouraged) encoding with 270 regard to Arabic (all other proprietary encodings 271 should be discouraged and frowned upon). 272 273o Keyboard 274 275 + CTRL-^ in insert/replace mode toggles between Arabic/Latin mode 276 277 + Keyboard mapping is based on the Microsoft's Arabic keymap (the 278 de facto standard in the Arab world): 279 280 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ 281 |! |@ |# |$ |% |^ |& |* |( |) |_ |+ || |~ ّ | 282 |1 ١ |2 ٢ |3 ٣ |4 ٤ |5 ٥ |6 ٦ |7 ٧ |8 ٨ |9 ٩ |0 ٠ |- |= |\ |` ذ | 283 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ 284 |Q َ |W ً |E ُ |R ٌ |T لإ |Y إ |U ` |I ÷ |O x |P ؛ |{ < |} > | 285 |q ض |w ص |e ث |r ق |t ف |y غ |u ع |i ه |o خ |p ح |[ ج |] د | 286 +-----------------------------------------------------------+ 287 |A ِ |S ٍ |D [ |F ] |G لأ |H أ |J ـ |K ، |L / |: |" | 288 |a ش |s س |d ي |f ب |g ل |h ا |j ت |k ن |l م |; ك |' ط | 289 +------------------------------------------------------+ 290 |Z ~ |X ْ |C { |V } |B لآ |N آ |M ' |< , |> . |? ؟ | 291 |z ئ |x ء |c ؤ |v ر |b لا |n ى |m ة |, و |. ز |/ ظ | 292 +-------------------------------------------------+ 293 294Restrictions 295------------ 296 297o VIM in its GUI form does not currently support Bi-directionality 298 (i.e. the ability to see both Arabic and Latin intermixed within 299 the same line). 300 301 302Known Bugs 303---------- 304 305There is one known minor bug, 306 307 1. If you insert a haraka (e.g. Fatha (U+064E)) after a LAM (U+0644) 308 and then insert an ALEF (U+0627), the appropriate combining will 309 not happen due to the sandwiched haraka resulting in something 310 that will NOT be displayed correctly. 311 312 WORK-AROUND: Don't include harakats between LAM and ALEF combos. 313 In general, don't anticipate to see correct visual 314 representation with regard to harakats and LAM+ALEF 315 combined characters (even those entered after both 316 characters). The problem noted is strictly a visual 317 one, meaning saving such a file will contain all the 318 appropriate info/encodings - nothing is lost. 319 320No other bugs are known to exist. 321 322 vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: 323