Gnome & Arabeyes.org (IRC Party)

[nadim arabeyes org (Nadim Shaikli)]

NAME,

You are cordially invited to share in Arabeyes.org's second annual
Evolution Party to be held on July 29th on IRC (it was on that date
in 2001 that Arabeyes (the Arabic Unix Meta-project) evolved and
mutated to its current form).

The reason you are being contacted is simple.  Gnome has proven
to be of great importance to the Linux community at large and within
this community there are those (including Arabeyes) whom value
internationalization (i18n) support.  Due to the fact that Arabic is
a demanding, feature-full and complex language and to the fact that
your project is highly regarded by Arabeyes' managers and members as
a key requirement and as an enabler, we'd like to work together to
bring Full and Complete Arabic support.

We at Arabeyes.org through our myriad volunteers have worked hard and
continue to do so to bring proper Arabic Language support to the various
Open Source programs and applications out there.  This work can only be
accomplished by opening channels with project leaders (such as yourself)
in order to make them aware of Arabic support issues within their projects.

On 29th of July, Arabeyes.org's party will not only be a means to celebrate
out past achievements, but it will a springboard to establish and start new
projects and forge new contacts and friendships.  As noted, Gnome is of key
concern to us and we hold it in high regard due to its overall impact on our
work.

Some logistics,

  Date        : July 29th, 2003
  IRC Server  : irc.freenode.net
  IRC Channel : #arabeyes
  Start Time  : 02:00pm UTC
  End   Time  : 02:00am UTC

Please visit World Timer Server to calculate your appropirate time,

  http://www.worldtimeserver.com

We look forward to seeing you and your fellow colleagues in order to
discuss Arabic support issues specific to Gnome and how best to solve
them.  Some of the current issues include,

  + Gnome's Evolution 1.4.3
    1) When composing a new message, setting the Format->Alignment to
       right-left is greyed out unless you enable HTML mode. Once you
       disable HTML mode you can still select right-left/center/left-right
       alignments.
    2) Bidi support is non-existent. Words once entered are in left-to-right
       until there is a whitespace, it then switches the word to the correct
       right-to-left order. The next word is sometimes completely blank.

  + Gnome Terminal
    1) No Bidi support
    2) No Shaping support

Not only would your presence be greatly appreciated, we are avid believers
in establishing rapport and personal contact to better server our mutual
goals in forging ahead.  We can also guarantee that your time spent at the
party and on this topic will be of great value to the development and
enhancement of Gnome.

PS: Do please reply promptly and give us a window of time to expect you in.

Sincerely,

 .: Arabeyes.org :.