How to enable Arabic support in KDE 3.0 (How-TO)

[info at Saudi ABM <info at saudiabm dot com>]

Hi
I cut this from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saudi_linux/message/957

I think this will be great if some in arabeyes.org put it in the site and 
translate it (so it be in arabic and english )

-------------------------- Start ---------------------------

Hello guys,
 
I use Mozilla Web browser to see Arabic sites like
 (www.aljazeera.net). But some sites are not displayed at all. So
 Mozilla has support for Arabic but it's not 100%.
 
Now KDE 3.0 has support for Arabic. I just enabled it today,
 June 27. Here are the steps to enable Arabic in KDE 3.0 :
 
First: Get Arabic Fonts
 =======================
 
Download some true type fonts from this URL:
 
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack/default.htm
 
times new roman, arial and courier new support arabic.
 These are self extracting cab files. If you don't have 
windows, you can use "cabextract" under linux:
 
http://www.kyz.uklinux.net/cabextract.php3
 
After you download the file:
 
tar zxvf cabextract-0.5.tar.gz
 cd cabextract-0.5
 ./configure
 make
 make install (you have to be root for this)
 
Then type:
 
cabextract courie32.exe
 cabextract arial32.exe
 cabextract times32.exe
 
to extract the configuration files for each font. 

Copy the all the fonts that have been extracted to a new
 directory, then use 'ttmkfdir' command inside the new directory
 to generate a "fonts.dir" and ""fonts.scale" files. Just type
 the command by itself.
 
If it doesn't create entries for iso10646-1 encoding, add them
 manually, and augment the number of entries at the top of
 "fonts.dir" and "fonts.scale" .
 
Add an entry to your xfs configuration file 

/etc/X11/fs/config:
 
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
 /some/other/dirs,
 .................
 /your/truetype/fonts/dir
 

Restart your xfs font server:
 
/etc/init.d/xfs restart
 
Create a ".fonts.conf" file for Xft. Here's mine:
 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
 <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
 <fontconfig>
 <dir>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype</dir>
 </fontconfig>
 
Substitute the dir element with the path where you installed the
 fonts.
 
Under Control Center->Look & Feel, choose Times New Roman for
 all fonts. You will find the button on the middle of the screen.
 

Second: Enalbe Arabic support
 =============================
 
Download the pavkage for Arabic support for KDE from:
 
http://i18n.kde.org/teams/index.php?action=info&team=ar
 
the package name is kde-i18n-ar.tar.bz2
 
You must install the files at the /usr directory by typing the
 follwoing:( you will have to be root)
 
tar xjf kde-i18n-ar.tar.bz2
 cd kde-i18n-ar
 ./configure --prefix=/usr
 make
 make install
 
Restart your kde3 session and you'll find Arabic under 
the language menu under personalization in the Control Center.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
 
To type in Arabic, go to Contorl Center->Perpherals->Keyboard
 and add Arabic Keyboard support.
 
After that, you can switch from English to Arabic keyboard by
 right clikcing on the small icon of the US flag in the panel.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
 
Peace out.
 
Faisal
 


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