The guidelines weren’t just empty words, they were written while working on the Hebrew adaptation to the Fusion theme and in the same time writing a new proof-of-concept version of cssrtl.py. The original intent was to release a more mature version of that code when it will be completed. However, due to the apparent shortage of time in the present and foreseeable future, I can’t see myself complete the project any time soon. So following the “release early” mantra, I’ve decided to release the code as-is. As I said, the code is in working state, but not polished, so it may be of benefit but may contain bugs. If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, I would be glad to hear.

Download

You can download the new version from here: cssrtl.py-2.0.tar.bz2. The code is available under the GPLv2 or any later version.

Usage

The new version works by creating a seperate css “fix” file that fixes the directionality of the css styles.

./cssrtl.py < main.css > main-rtl.css

Afterward, just link the main-rtl.css after main.css in your HTML files.

Porting this theme to RTL was the main catalysis for improving my cssrtl.py script. Beside translating the theme to Hebrew and making the necessary CSS adaptation to RTL, I had also to adopt the fonts used. The font selected by the author weren’t compatible with Hebrew, and the alternatives looked awful. So I’ve chose some other fonts from the same family to keep the overall look of the theme, but make it more Hebrew friendly.

You can see a live version of the theme in David Zadok‘s site. The theme can be downloaded from here: fusion-rtl-2.6.zip [326.8kb]

There was a slight problem as some of the recipes are in Hebrew, and it seems TiddlyWiki doesn’t have built-in support for RTL (right-to-left) tiddlers. However, such support can be added via custom stylesheets and the tiddlers’ tags. The idea for this method is taken from this TiddlyWiki.

Create a new tiddler called “StyleSheet” (without the quotes). This is a special tiddler (a shadow tiddler) that lets you add additional CSS code for your wiki. Insert the following code into the newly created tiddler:

/*{{{*/
div[tags~="RTL"].tiddler {
    direction: rtl;
}
div[tags~="RTL"].tiddler .subtitle {
    direction: ltr;
}
div[tags~="RTL"].tiddler .tagged {
    direction: ltr;
    float: left;
}
/*}}}*/

Now for every tiddler you want to be in RTL direction just add RTL to its list of tags. After you do it, the tiddler will appear correctly. Here is an example of what in RTL looks like after the fix:

A screenshot of an RTL tiddler

So I wrote a patch for the he.po file that fixes the problem.

Index: he.po
===================================================================
--- he.po	(revision 28095)
+++ he.po	(working copy)
@@ -15050,15 +15050,15 @@
 
 #: src/Buffer.cpp:2902
 msgid "\\arabic{enumi}."
-msgstr "\\arabic{enumi}."
+msgstr ".\\arabic{enumi}"
 
 #: src/Buffer.cpp:2908
 msgid "\\roman{enumiii}."
-msgstr "\\roman{enumiii}."
+msgstr ".\\roman{enumiii}"
 
 #: src/Buffer.cpp:2911
 msgid "\\Alph{enumiv}."
-msgstr "\\Alph{enumiv}."
+msgstr ".\\Alph{enumiv}"
 
 #: src/Buffer.cpp:2928 src/insets/InsetCaption.cpp:293
 msgid "Senseless!!! "

While this patch is against the SVN trunk (LyX 2.0), it could also be applied manually to older LyX versions.
After yo apply the patch you should do the following (I assume that you are in the root of the LyX source tree):

cd po/
make he.gmo
cd ../
make install

Now restart LyX and you will see the numbering appear as it should.

Download

You can download the script from here: cssrtl.py.

Usage

Using the script is pretty simple. Just pass the name of the script to cssrtl.py and he will automatically translate it for you.

Example:
python cssrt.py main.css

You can use the -o flag to specify a different output file instead of overwriting the existing file.

If the CSS style for the body tag is missing a direction statement, you should add the -d flag to the list of command line arguments. This will cause the script to add one for you when translating the layout.

See python cssrtl.py --help for more information.

Limitations

While this script is pretty useful as it is, it still isn’t perfect. The major limitation, is that the script doesn’t automatically mirrors images used in the layout. So if your layout contains images you will need to flip them manually (however the script will position them in right place by automatically). Another limitation is that the script doesn’t alway handle correctly scripts with IE hacks, so it always good to keep a backup and manually check the result on IE.

Overall, despite some (minor) limitations, the script is very useful, and it helped me a lot when having to translate CSS layouts to RTL. I’ve successfully used it to translate WordPress, Joomla, Druple and MediaWiki themes with minimal intervention on my side, thus saving a lot of my time. If you find the script useful, it will be nice of your to send a word. Also the script is released under the GPL so if you have any patches/improvements, please send them.