Although we want as many of you to be able to read Arabic on our site, we are
afraid that we will face this problem frequently... You can view Arabic text if
you have the right operating system and/or the right browser or plug-in.
The website have been fully tested under Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.01
and 5.5 it is fully compliant with them. So we are definitely recommend the use
of them. But we are aware that lots of you do not have this as a very handily
solution at the time being. So we will post here some solutions we have found
until today. We recommend to read this article very carefully and proceed not
before you will consult with your computer vendor for compatibilities and so
on...
Here are few options of Arabic Browser for Various Operating Systems and we
welcome your constructive comments
and suggestions on this issue.
Arabic MS Internet Explorer 3.02 (stand alone browser, preserves
formatting).
Microsoft's Web Address: http://www.microsoft.com/
Here's a direct link to the download
area (minimum install. File name =armsie302.exe, size=5.86 MB). It works for
both Arabic and English pages and switches automatically according to language
as specified in the header. We have been specified the character code as Arabic
one!
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Preview for Middle East: Works with both Arabic Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 Arabic Enabled. The full installation contains Front Page Express which is modified to handle Arabic HTML' ing. IE4.0 Supports Arabic and English and is updated for style sheets and dynamic HTML. Here's a direct link to the download area.
Windows NT 4.0 Arabic Enabled: This version comes with MSIE 3.02 Arabic already with the system.
Sakhr's Sindbad (requires 32 bit Netscape V. 3)
Netscape: http://www.netscape.com/
Sakhr's Web Address: http://www.sakhr.com/
Alis Tango (Alis Technologies)
Alis's Web Address: http://www.alis.com/
Accent's Multilingual Mosaic
Accent's Web Address: http://www.accentsoft.com/
You may be able to read Arabic text on Arabic Windows 95 using an English browser like Netscape or MSIE, but the text will be left aligned and formatting along with layout will be lost. Numbers will not display correctly, nor in the right place. To be able to do that, you'll need to change font settings.
For version 3.0 of Netscape: choose Options, General Preferences and then the
FONTS tab. Choose USER DEFINE from the list. Choose an Arabic font for each of
the Proportional and Fixed fonts. Good examples Traditional Arabic for
proportional and Courier (Arabic) for fixed. Click OK and close the dialogue
box.
In the Options menu, under Document Encoding, choose User Defined (make sure a
check box is present next to it). In Netscape 4.x, preferences are under the
EDIT menu.
MS Windows 2000 (NT 5):
Windows 2000 (originally NT 5) contains support for many languages including
Arabic. The built in browser is Arabic aware and the task becomes easier.
MS English Windows 95, 98
or Windows NT (may work on Pan European versions as well):
Sakhr's Sindbad, Accent's Multilingual Mosaic, Alis Tango (latest versions)
Please see links to these vendors above and make sure you read their system
requirements.
MSIE 5.1: we tested MSIE 5.1 on Windows 95, 98 and NT4 (English Windows!). MSIE 5.1 (5.5) works very well.
MS Windows 3.1x, Windows NT
3.50:
If you have Arab DOS you may be able to use Lynx (Text only
browser). With Windows 3.11, Windows for Work groups 3.11 with Arabic support,
both Netscape and MS Internet Explorer (English versions) allow you to view
Arabic text (layout and format will be lost), earlier versions of Netscape may
work better.
MAC OS:
If you have World script installed (Arabic fonts included), you may
be able to view Arabic text (without the layout, mostly left aligned and some
lines mixed up - especially if the line contains a period in the middle).
Basically, if you can type in Arabic on your Mac you'll be able to set the font
(fixed and proportional) to any Arabic font you have. This works with both
Netscape and MS Internet Explorer. Mac Arabic is close to ISO (also known as
ASMO) but not identical. There is no full browser support for Arabic on MAC OS
to the best of our knowledge (regardless of coding sets).
You may want to try CyberDog from Apple (requires system 7.5.3 or later). CyberDog (in version 2) can be downloaded from: http://www.cyberdog.org/ and may exist on Apple OS CD version 8. Our understanding is that CyberDog supports both ISO and CP Arabic but we have not tested that.
We were notified of a product by Digital Ventures called WinArabic Script for displaying Arabic web pages and composing mail on Mac systems. The site address is http://www.moughamarat.com/
Unix /Linux users:
PMosaic from Global Publishing or Langabox's AraMosaic (may require root
authorization to install). AraMosaic can save html files in either coding set.
Global Publishing Web Address: http://www.gpg.com/
Langabox Web Address: http://www.langbox.com/