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Version: 9.0.2

Bidirectional Text

Rendering of bidirectional text now has experimental support, which can be enabled on a per-render extension basis by changing the "Layout Style" to "Bidirectional [Experimental]" in the properties view of the text control. With this layout mode enabled, text written in languages that require text to flow in both directions will be properly laid out.

For Windows users, there are a few additional steps required to enable bidirectional text rendering. A fonts.conf file is required for the bidirectional engine to locate the projects fonts. The contents of this file are below, and should be edited to set <dir> and <cachedir>; to point to the fonts directory. Additionally, the environment variables should be updated to set FONTCONFIG_PATH to point to the fonts directory as well.

An example 'fonts.conf' if the project was located at C:\Users\Crank\Documents\MyProject:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
    <fontconfig>
        <dir>C:\Users\Crank\Documents\MyProject\fonts</dir>
        <cachedir>C:\Users\Crank\Documents\MyProject\fonts</cachedir>
        <config></config>
    </fontconfig>

The fonts.conf file should then be located at C:\Users\Crank\Documents\MyProject\fonts\fonts.conf.

Some features that are not yet implemented/tested with bidirectional layouts:

  • Underline rendering

  • Rotated Text

  • Rich Text

  • Vertical Alignment (always aligned to top)

Known Issues​

  • Many fonts don't include the proper glyphs to handle bidirectional languages. It is recommended to use a Noto font appropriate for the desired language which can be found online for free.

  • Word wrap does not yet support wrapping in the middle of words (only whole words will be wrapped)