hebrew4wp - Hebrew for WordPress

Q: What is hebrew4wp all about?

A: hebrew4wp offers incredibly simple Hebrew and Arabic support for bilingual WordPress installations.

Q: Why did you write hebrew4wp?

A: I was looking for an easy and elegant way to add Hebrew support to my English blog without installing WordPress from scratch, rebuilding the database and putting my sanity up for sale on eBay. The major advantage of hebrew4wp is that it requires minimal changes to your current installation.

Q: But there are better solutions, like Ran Yaniv Hartstein's WordPress in Hebrew distribution!

A: That's right! He's done an excellent job providing a Hebrew version of WordPress free of change for the internet community.

Q: So what are the major differences between hebrew4wp and the WordPress in Hebrew distribution?

A: WordPress in Hebrew takes the whole Hebrew thing much more seriously. The entire system was translated to Hebrew, including the administration area. hebrew4wp only supports a tiny fraction of what's offered by WordPress in Hebrew. It's major advantage is that it requires minimal changes to take an English installation of WordPress and make it bilingual (and bi-directional). The only thing hebrew4wp does is to take Hebrew posts and align them to the right, while English posts are left intact. All other page elements stay exactly the same, in English.

Q: Does hebrew4wp work with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome?

A: Yes, both browsers are supported along with Internet Explorer.

Q: Can I see a screen shot of hebrew4wp in action?

A: Sure. Click the image to see a bigger version.

Q: Is Arabic supported?

A: Yes! Even though the name of this library suggests only Hebrew is supported, the idea is to support all right-to-left languages in use today. Arabic is natively supported by this library and there is no need to make any changes to it. However, Arabic support has not been tested yet. Go ahead - be the first to try it out!

Q: Is Persian (Farsi) supported?

A: Yes! Based on my online research and the testimony of a fellow linguistics student, I believe Persian uses an extended form of the Arabic script for its writing system. Since the Arabic script is natively supported, so is Persian.

Q: Is Urdu (spoken in Pakistan and India) supported?

A: Yes! Wikipedia says that Urdu is written using an extended form of the Persian alphabet, which is also supported (see above).

Q: Are any other alphabets supported by this library?

A: No. Each particular right-to-left script (alphabet) has to be added separately to the library. If you need support for any other right-to-left script, please contact me, and add it yourself and send me the changes you have made. I will add them to the next version of hebrew4wp.

Q: If Arabic, Persian and Urdu are also supported, why does the library refer to Hebrew in its name?

A: hebrew4wp grew out of my need to make Hebrew entries aligned to the right on my generally English blog. Although Arabic, Persian and Urdu support was there from day 1, "bidi4wp" or "rtl4wp" just didn't sound right.

Q: Is anyone using this library?

A: Yes, I'm using it on my own personal blog .

Other than that, the script is also used on the following web sites:

If you are using it on your own blog, please let me know!

Q: Okay, I'm hooked! How much does it cost to use hebrew4wp?

A: Monthly subscriptions start at $59 per month. Bzzz... just kidding! hebrew4wp costs nothing! It is distributed free of charge and can be used for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, under the terms of the license agreement.

Q: Is hebrew4wp open source?

A: Yes! You can modify its source code and distribute the changes under terms similar to those of the MIT license. See the source file for the full license text.

Q: Where can I get a copy of hebrew4wp?

A: Please see the project's SourceForge.net project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/hebrew4wp/.

Q: How do I install hebrew4wp on my blog?

A: If you do not host your own blog on your own server, hebrew4wp is probably not for you. If you do host your own blog, then download the latest version of hebrew4wp, extract the hebrew4wp_10.js file from the archive, and upload it to the root directory of your blog on your web server. Then, add the following line to the bottom of the footer.php file of the WordPress theme you are using:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/hebrew4wp_10.js" defer="defer"></script>

If you have uploaded the hebrew4wp_10.js file to a different location on your web server, make sure you change the <script> tag accordingly.

Q: Any other tips on adding bi-directional support to WordPress?

Dr. Andre Oboler suggests:

If your blog displays question marks instead of Hebrew characters, you may need to tweak WordPress a little bit.
In the root directory of your blog installation, there's a file called wp-config.php.
Open it in a text editor and replace "define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');" with "define('DB_CHARSET', '');". That should do the trick.

Thanks Andre!

Q: How do I contact the author?

A: You can e-mail me.

Legal: WordPress is a registered trademark of Automattic, Inc. Neither hebrew4wp nor its author are affiliated with Automattic, Inc.
Keywords: hebrew support wordpress תמיכה עברית וורדפרס תמיכה בעברית לוורדפרס תמיכה עברית ורדפרס לורדפרס