Textbox RTL doesn't work

Builder
1

If this template helps then use it. If not then just delete and start from scratch.

OS (e.g. Win10): Win 10
PsychoPy version (e.g. 1.84.x): 2021.1.0
Standard Standalone? (y/n) y
What are you trying to achieve?: Add a textbox in which participants can write input in Hebrew.
What did you try to make it work?: Added the textbox item from the builder
What specifically went wrong when you tried that?: When I set the setting to RTL it does allow to write in hebrew, but reverses the order of the input i.e "Hello "would turn into “Olleh” I tried to put a reverse command in code (Used to do it for text before RTL was introduced) but it didn’t register it. When I change it to LTR(In the hope it may reverse it) it doesn’t show hebrew at all, rather just blank boxes.

Include pasted full error message if possible. “That didn’t work” is not enough information. There is no error massage

2

Changing RTL and LTR shouldn’t affect whether characters render - it just changes the order around like you describe (“hello” to “olleh”) - characters appearing as boxes usually means that the font you’re using doesn’t support those characters. In 2021.1.0 you can specify the name of any font from fonts.google.com, so if you filter by language you should be able to fix this by using a font which supports Hebrew characters (I’ve used Rubik and Arimo in the past so I know these do)

3

Hi @TParsons,

We also have issues with the textbox component with Hebrew. When selecting the Rubik font, as you suggested, we get to see Hebrew but when typing in Hebrew text it shows it LTR even though we selected RTL in the Formatting tab of the textbox component.

There is not error to mention as this is a visual bug. I would like to add that the standard text component is working well for short sentences but when the text is long and has multiple lines the lines are displayed from bottom to top which is another bug.

Thanks,
Rani

4

This is an ongoing issue, we’re working on getting RTL working but there’s a lot to keep in mind as it has to work with all languages and work with text as it’s inputted, you can keep track of our progress via this pull request:

5

Hi Todd,

Thanks for prompt response. So, we will wait for the issues to be resolved so we can implement the textbox component in our experiments.

Thanks,
Rani