Bidirectional support

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The BMS Map Editor supports bidirectional options for Arabic and Hebrew maps. Some features apply only to Arabic maps, as indicated in the documentation. By default, bidirectional support is not enabled.

For additional information about specific issues related to bidirectional functions and support, see Bidirectional considerations.

Note: The following conditions apply to the BMS Map Editor bidirectional support:
  • All bidirectional maps must have UTF-8 text file encoding.
  • The Copy and Paste functions are not supported for bidirectional data.

Enabling bidirectional support

To work with Arabic and Hebrew maps, you must enable bidirectional support in the BMS Map Editor Preferences window. This step adds a bidirectional mode button to the Design page and options to the Design menu. Status bar information is given when directly editing a field.

Enable the bidirectional settings that you want before you close the Preferences window.

Bidirectional preferences

The following bidirectional settings are available.
  • Enable visual data ordering

    Sets visual ordering of text, instead of the default logical ordering.

  • Enable bidirectional settings button

    Places a Bidirectional settings button on the Design page options bar

  • Default RTL orientation

    Sets a right-to-left text flow in the display.

  • Default right alignment

    Causes fields added in the Design view to be right-aligned. In the source file right-aligned fields are padded with leading spaces.

  • Enable symmetric swapping

    Resets swappable characters. For example, in a right-to-left string, the parentheses characters ( and ) are reversed.

  • Enable numeric swapping

    Sets an inversion of the screen, which causes Hindi numerals to be replaced by their Arabic counterparts and the Arabic numerals to be replaced by their Hindi counterparts.

When selected in the Preferences window, the map options are in effect for each newly loaded map set.

Visual input key functions

Visual input key functions allow visual input in input fields and the initial values for labeled input fields. Table 1 shows the key functions and key combinations involving the number pad that are available if you enable visual data ordering in the preferences.
Table 1. Visual input key functions
Key function Description Key combination
Push Starts a segment of reversed text and reverts the direction of the cursor. Text is pushed toward the end of the field, and the cursor remains stationary. Shift+NumLock
EndPush Terminates the current segment of reversed text. The cursor skips to the end of the segment, and its direction is restored. Shift+/
AutoPush Enables the Push and EndPush functions to be automatically invoked, based on the actual text entered. Alt+/
FieldReverse Reverses the typing direction and the direction of functions such as Backspace, Delete, Home, and End. However, the function does not visually invert the contents of the field. Alt+NumLock
Switch between input of Arabic/Hindi Numerals Switches numerals input between Arabic and Hindi. Alt+*

Status bar information

When you click a map set item in the Design canvas, the following bidirectional information is displayed in the status bar:
  • Orientation of the current map set

    Status displays either LTR (left-to-right) or RTL.

  • Autopush flag

    Status displays A when Autopush is enabled (visual mode only).

  • The current editing mode
    The following mode labels can be displayed independently or in combination.
    • None

      No bidirectional mode options are enabled.

    • Push

      Push mode is enabled.

    • FldRev

      Field Reverse is enabled.

    • Hindi

      Input is Hindi numerals (Arabic only).

Bidirectional Web page generation options

When generating a JavaServer Faces (JSF) Web page from a BMS map set file, the following bidirectional output options are available:
  • Enable visual data ordering

    Creates a visual JSF page with text fields that support visual input.

  • Handling Arabic text

    Select this option when generating JSF pages to be used in Arabic applications.

In order to have a JSF page layout that is similar to the map set Preview layout, the following options settings must match the bidirectional preferences used to create the map set. See Bidirectional preferences for additional information.
  • Visual BMS Map
  • Right-to-left orientation
  • Symmetric Swapping
  • Numeric Swapping
The following features are enabled if you selected visual data ordering when setting the bidirectional preferences:
  • Copy/Paste bidi support

    Enables copy/paste to and from the input fields in the JSF page.

  • Hints

    Enables hints to be displayed beside the input fields in the JSF page.

  • Status Line

    Enables display of input field status in the browser status bar.

Important: If you select multiple bidirectional attributes while generating a JSF page, script errors might prevent the JSF page from being executed. To clear such script errors, you must manually edit the JSF page.