Hebrew Locale

The Solaris 7 operating environment includes the Hebrew Language Environment. This section describes the main features of the Hebrew Language Environment.

Typing Hebrew Text

You may need to intersperse Hebrew and English text in the same file. To toggle between Hebrew and English input modes, use Ctrl+t. The message at the base of each tool displays the current input language.

Editing Hebrew Text

This section describes how to work with Hebrew text, specifically, how to manipulate the cursor within the logical edit mode.

You may find a residual cursor image at the beginning of a line of text, after text has been entered. Functionality is not affected by this residual image. Continue entering data.

Character Insertion

There is ambiguity when the text insertion point is in the boundary between Hebrew and English text. To solve this ambiguity, a split cursor has been implemented to reflect the two positions. The display will be ab|DC| where “|” represents each cursor.

The split cursor may not display properly when pressing the Home or End keys.

Printing Hebrew Text

Hebrew printing is implemented by using a set of filters. The Hebrew locale package SUNWheu should be installed on both the server machine to which the printer is attached and the client machine.

Installed Hebrew Filters

The following list of filters are included in the Hebrew locale package.

heb2ps

This heb2ps filter converts any text to postscript and sends the Hebrew font together with font to printer.

• Input types: heb2ps

• Output types: postscript

• Printer types: any

• Printers: any

• Filter type: slow

• Command: /usr/openwin/bin/mp

• Options: INPUT * = -A4

  Options: INPUT * = -L he

hebl2r

When printing with the hebl2r filter, no reordering is done on input text. Text is formatted to fit an 80 column paper size. This would be useful for printing an English document with a few Hebrew words.

• Input types: hebl2r

• Output types: heb2ps

• Printer types: any

• Printers: any

• Filter type: slow

• Command: /usr/lib/lp/postscript/convert_text

• Options: INPUT * = -linewidth 80

hebr21

When printing with the hebr21 filter, all text is indiscriminately reversed and the resulting printer output is aligned to the right.

• Input types: hebr21

• Output types: heb2ps

• Printer types: any

• Printers: any

• Filter type: slow

• Command: /usr/lib/lp/postscript/convert_text

• Options:

  INPUT * = -linewidth 80 
  -inputLayoutDirection right_down  -outputLayoutDirection left_down 
  

hebtxt

When printing with the hebtxt filter, text is sorted in both Hebrew and English directions and the resulting printer output is aligned to the right

• Input types: hebtxt

• Output types: heb2ps

• Printer types: any

• Printers: any

• Filter type: slow

• Command: /usr/lib/lp/postscript/convert_text

• Options:

  INPUT * = -inputTextMode text_mode_implicit 
  -outputTextMode text_mode_visual -lineWidth 80 -inputLayoutDirection 
  left_down -outputLayoutDirection right_down
  

Using the Hebrew Filter From the Command Line

To print from the command line, use the hebtxt filter. The lp printing command is lp -T hebtxt -d printer_name.

Printing from dt Applications

The print action field in the dt configuration files should be modified to add the Hebrew text filter. For example, in the dtmail application, the print action in the file /usr/dt/appconfig/types/he/dtmail.dt should be:

ACTION Print  
{
LABEL           Print 
ARG_TYPE        DTMAIL_FILE   
TYPE            COMMAND
WINDOW_TYPE     NO_STDIO
EXEC_STRING     sh -c ' \                                 
                dtmailpr -p -f %(File)Arg_1% | 
                /usr/lib/lp/postscript/convert_text -inputTextMode 
                -text_mode_implicit -outputTextMode text_mode_visual 
                -lineWidth 80 -inputLayoutDirection left_down
                -outputLayoutDirection right_down| mp -A4 -L he| dtlp 
                -u %(File)Arg_1%;'}

The listed convert_text parameters will print right-aligned text right-to-left. To print text aligned to left, left-to-right replace the previous parameters with -lineWidth 80.