Preview of Arabic Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

[Magnus]

اشكرك على ردك ياغالي
ولكن هل من الممكن الحصول على هذي النسخة البيتي

I'm just going by Google translation here so forgive me if I got it wrong...

The beta of Arabic Tiger was not a public beta. It is not available for download from anywhere and we're not allowed to distribute it. We're working on getting a more recent version to try and write about and hope to be able to publish that soon.

[kroom]

ok dr-emiratesmac
Thank you

[iDubai]

hu.. that looks clean!

But hey, this is not fair....!!! do you know arabic, aren't we supposed to test it "As arab'z" and see if it is any good. How come you are playing around with it

[Magnus]

But hey, this is not fair....!!! do you know arabic, aren't we supposed to test it "As arab'z" and see if it is any good. How come you are playing around with it

Did you read the original post in the thread iDubai? I think it mentions I wasn't the only one doing the "previewing"

[AlIrani]

Dear Zaid;

As you mentioned, the localisation (vs. full Arabization) of the OS seems to be based on English version. With other word the menus and dialogue boxes are just translated to Arabic and displayed LTR which is not proper. As I see in enclosed pictures (actually I received Arabic version for testing but I was forced to remove it and reformat my hd as this caused me big problem in every single aspect os OS)even the Arabic text in dialogue boxes are not aligned to right hand side which is totally unacceptable.

In my view if Apple inc. is not engaged in Arabization process of OS then we will run into trouble. What will happen with all application programs like iWork and iWeb which even dose not support RTL text input. I believe the localisation should include both OS and all applications to firstly support RTL text entry and secondly Arabic interface. This should be a complete package. only in this case the OSX and Mac will be an attractive alternative to Windows machine in middle east for common users and government departments.

BTW one of the IRMUG members has translated the OS into Persian (using Xcode) which comparing with Arabic version looks better(see the attached picture). My point is not to devaluate the job which is done by Arabic business machine on the contrary I appreciated what they are doing in this regard but I believe that without Apple full engagement in this issue this will be an impossible task.

Best regards
Al-Irani

[Geehumshriber]

Hope this is not true, the last thing I wanna see is an arabised version of MAC OS, it reminds me of the last (failure) version I have used of windows (1998 Arabic enables) it sucked big time. I bet we gonna have hell of a time using it, bugs and glitches and maybe more, ask me I have all sorts of hard times with arabic XT and AXT fonts on daily basis.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Hope this is not true, the last thing I wanna see is an arabised version of MAC OS, it reminds me of the last (failure) version I have used of windows (1998 Arabic enables) it sucked big time. I bet we gonna have hell of a time using it, bugs and glitches and maybe more, ask me I have all sorts of hard times with arabic XT and AXT fonts on daily basis.

Perhaps you've seen our review and built up this conclusion. Let us use it after it is done before we judge it. Our last Arabic Mac OS version was a good one. I remember around 1996 or so.

As for XT or AXT fonts its got nothing to do with system performance or behavior but rather affects how letters are displayed. If you have an issue with fonts compatibility with Adobe or QuarkXpress apps that's another issue.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

I do agree with you Al-Irani about proper localization, we have discussed the same points your raised off-line at some stage in the past.

I do like the Persian version apperance, this is what we expect the Arabic version to be - I hope.

[atawakkol]

Emirates Mac had the pleasure of trying out a development beta version of a version of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger localized in Arabic. This means it's not just the Arabic support that has been present in Mac OS X since 10.2 Jaguar, but a complete Mac OS X in Arabic. The localization process is still under way and there is no known release date.

A first glimpse clearly shows that this is unfinished project, so many commands, applications, menus are in a mix of English and Arabic. That said, we obviously expect a fully Arabized Mac OS X when this project is completed. For example, the System Preferences window title is named in Arabic, while its relevant command in the Apple menu is still in English. The Arabic font is overall smooth and readable, but wordings are not accurate in some areas. The often rumored resolution-independent interface that may be a part of Leopard would probably help make the Arabic font more readable since the user then can adjust the font size to suit the screen they use.

Reflecting back to the last Arabic Mac OS, 7.5.3, there were some phrases that people became used to see at that time. A suggestion for the people working on this add-on is to take a look at this earlier Arabic Mac OS version while working on this project.

Check out the Text Edit application, for example. While trying to Save As "Word Document", the translation doesn't give this meaning. A technically experienced person should check the translation afterwards. Not all warnings and alerts are translated, users with no or little English required to read, understand and decide which button to press.

While there are translated warning and information dialogs, the Help application doesn't support Arabic. This is an important feature for new Mac users in the Arab World who are concerned about learning new skills. The Help application must get Arabized. For example, while trying to search for how to burn CD, no results were shown.

Spotlight can find any Arabic named document and Arabic contents in specific documents such as Word, PDF. However this feature is available in the International system that supports Arabic language as well. Viewing folders and documents in the favorite columns style doesn't support preview, which is an important feature and doesn't show detailed information. While in the icon and list view some of this informations is visible. In the File Info. all information is scrambled and just partly visible.

All in all and keeping in mind this is a developer version, there is a long way to go before this is ready to be released to the general public. It seems the developers have put in place much of the underlying mechanisms for Mac OS X to be displayed in full Arabic, but there's much of the translations left to do as you can tell from the screen shots. Some key applications, like Safari and Mail, don't seem to have been touched at all so far, and we would expect the entire standard installation of Tiger to be Arabized if this is ever going to become something really useful. Whenever this is finished and released, there will also be issues of updated and new versions of Mac OS X. Apple has said that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be released "spring 2007" and what we've looked at is an Arabic version of 10.4 Tiger which is not finished yet. So for users there are many questions still to be answered. We applaud the effort and look forward to seeing further developments.

Zaid and MacUAE were the ones taking the time to install and look at this preview so a big thank you to them.

HI all out there. I'm a fresh member to this forum and I have to say that as a very old MAC developer and user - since the old good Mac SE!! I'm really impressed and happy with the arabization efforts. Despite the fact that it is really far from being complete but it is really great effort and I do know how much it needs to complete sucha job.

A quick question though in relation to the near release of leopard where this Arabic version is of Tiger, Where is APPLE themselves on this project???? In the old days we had Apple France well cooperating on such issues??? Excuse me if It sounds silly, but are they (Apple, Inc.) involved at all in this effort??? they could really ease a lot of things.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Salam atawakkol, I'm an olde like yourself and sure would like to see Apple support Arabic by issuing a full Mac OS like old days instead of their little package "Language Kit"

Are you sure we had Apple France helping us in the past or was it another place in Europe?

By the way, you can quote part of the topic instead of full, it would look better.