irssi/README-HEBREW

Hebrew support in irssi
-----------------------

Before you can enjoy IRCing in Hebrew, you need to get two other things.

1.  FriBidi, a free implementation of the Unicode BiDi algorithm).
    See http://imagic.weizmann.ac.il/~dov/freesw/FriBidi/

2.  hebxfonts, a collection of Unicode-encoded Hebrew fonts along
    with the keyboard mappings to use them (the right Alt key will be
    configured to generate Hebrew characters).
    See http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts/

After you get these two, you should be ok to go.  To enable the Hebrew
support, specify --enable-gtk-hebrew=<path>.  If the path starts with a
tilde (~), it is taken relative to your home directory.  Here's a good
idea:

        configure --enable-gtk-hebrew=~/.gnome/irssi-hebrew.gtkrc

After compiling and installing, you should copy the supplied gtkrc
file to where you told the program it would find it.  Say you're at the
root of the irssi source tree, typing:

        cp src/gui-gnome/irssi-hebrew.gtkrc ~/.gnome/irssi-hebrew.gtkrc

would do the trick.

One last configuration task is done from within irssi.  Fire it up,
then go to the preferences dialog box and select a Hebrew font.
(e.g., -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-c-*-iso8859-8)

The Hebrew support is not complete;  it works as expected (ie, reversing
stuff with the FriBidi thingy) for the text entry field and for the
output text.  In other places, you may see Hebrew characters, only
going left-to-right;  in yet other places, you may not see Hebrew at all.

I have no intention of making this any better;  comprehensive support
for Hebrew should come from within the GTK+ widget set, and not by
patching applications.


Ronen Tzur <rtzur@shani.net>