Align Arabic typed response - language style RTL/Arabic doesn't work in textboxes

Online experiments
1

What did you try to make it work?:
I’m trying to run an experiment using textbox with Arabic language which follows right to left language style. I still got the Arabic letters written from left to right even when I changed the style to Arabic and RTL style.

In the English version of the study I used the following codes for as follows:

in begin experiment tab I have:

inputText3 = ""

In begin experiment tab:

inputText3 = ""
actualKeys=""
shift_flag = False
event.clearEvents(‘keyboard’)

In each frame tab I have:

actualKeys = event.getKeys()
n = len(actualKeys)
i = 0
while i < n:
if actualKeys[i] == ‘return’:
continueRoutine = False
break
elif actualKeys[i] == ‘backspace’:
inputText3 = inputText3[:-1] # lose the final character
i = i + 1
elif actualKeys[i] == ‘space’:
inputText3 += ’ ’
i = i + 1
elif actualKeys[i] in [‘minus’, ‘-’, ‘num_subtract’, ‘Minus’, ‘slash’]:
inputText3 += ‘-’
i = i + 1
elif actualKeys[i] in [‘lshift’, ‘rshift’, ‘SHIFT’]:
shift_flag = True
i = i + 1
else:
if len(actualKeys[i]) == 1:
if shift_flag:
inputText3 += actualKeys[i].upper()
shift_flag = False
else:
inputText3 += actualKeys[i]
i = i + 1
In end routine tab:

thisExp.addData(“typedWord3”, inputText3)
inputText = ""

but these codes are not working at all in the Arabic version. I tried the text box and at least I got the Arabic letters displayed in the screen but in the wrong alignment (LTR).

I’m not sure if I need specific coding and whether or not there a way to make it using textbox?

Thank you
Ghozayel

2

Hi,
Python has a well known issue with Arabic. It can’t get the kerning right. The simplest work-around is to use a word processor to write the text you want to use as stimuli and convert them into images (just taking a screenshot will work if you don’t have access to a “cleaner” method). If you display them as images, they won’t be altered by Python’s text processing.
Good luck,
Mark

3

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply and suggestion. I’ve actually followed your suggested solution with the Arabic text I want to display on the screen, it works, thank you. However, I need to come up with a solution for text entries from participants, i.e. typing an Arabic script as a response to a question. I hope there’s a sort of trick that can make it happen :frowning:

Best,
Ghozayel