Hebrew Support in Solaris

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General

Solaris offers the ability to display and enter Hebrew scripts in its desktop environment via its Complex Text Language (CTL) support. This covers everything from text editors, printing and web browsing. The level of support in a Solaris installation will depend on choices made by the System Administrator during install time.

Inputting and Displaying Text

The following example illustrates inputting and displaying Hebrew in the Text Editor in a unicode Hebrew locale. It also demonstrates how different scripts can be mixed in the locale.

1. 
   Normal text editor view
2. 
   Click on the yellow box at the bottom and select Hebrew
3. 
   Input Hebrew text
4. 
   Click on the yellow box at the bottom and select English/European again and input plain English text.
5. 
   Click on the yellow box at the bottom and select Cyrillic again and input Cyrillic text.

Logging in with Hebrew Support

Full Hebrew Locale

If the System Administrator selected a Hebrew locale during install (currently he_IL or Israeli Hebrew support) then Hebrew should be available as a login option on the Login Screen (dtlogin) in the languages drop down box. Once logged into the locale clicking on the yellow drop down box attached to each window lets you switch between English and Hebrew text for input.

UTF-8 Locale

If the System Administrator didn't select a Hebrew locale and no Hebrew locale is availableon the login screen then Hebrew text can still be entered and displayed via one of the UTF-8 locales (en_US.UTF-8 should always be available on default installs). Once in a UTF-8 locale Hebrew text can be entered by clicking the drop down yellow box attached to each window (it should say [English/European] by default) and selecting Hebrew. This will switch from normal input to Hebrew complex text input. To switch back click on the yellow drop down box and select [English/European]. This technique also applies to Hebrew UTF-8 locales as illustrated above.

Levels of Support in Solaris Releases

Solaris 9

In Solaris 9 a full hebrew unicode locale was introduced (he_IL.UTF-8). This allows you to log into UTF-8 with full native Hebrew support but also have full support for other scripts (e.g. Cyrillic, Japanese, etc.).

Solaris 8

Solaris 8 ships with hebrew support in both a he locale and the UTF-8 locales. These locales support enhanced CTL input and display of Hebrew scripts.

Solaris 2.7

Preliminary support for Hebrew was introduced in this release with the availability of a he locale. Basic CTL input was also introduced.

Solaris 2.6

The Motif libraries from Sun for Solaris 2.6 and older do not support bi-directional Hebrew.

Motif libraries that do have hebrew support are available from El-Mar Software Ltd

Web Browser Support

Full browser support [on Solaris] for Hebrew has been available since Netscape 6.2.2+ and Mozilla 0.9.8+. Versions of Netscape/Mozilla previous to these do not support Hebrew display.