Problem with HTML Textbox and Hebrew with ? or :

aooga · April 17th, 2009, 05:30 PM

When I create a textbox to enter data into a database (and then display it back to me), if I write a ? after a word and then a space the ? shows up on the wrong side. Similar things with colon etc. Are there any more robust textboxes I can use instead of the stand input ones, or any other workaround? any free solutions? I suppose the ideal would be a simple and free rich text form. If I could get the gmail compose email form on my site that'd be great, it's a really robust form which works very well with right to left languages.

Marc · April 17th, 2009, 05:45 PM

I don't understand how this can be happening... Can we see the relevant sections of your code?

aooga · April 17th, 2009, 05:49 PM

http://hypermegaultra.com/editQuestions.php?#602
Note the ? at the begging of the sentence instead of the end.

Marc · April 17th, 2009, 05:52 PM

What format is your database in? The database will be reading the data in form left-to-right, instead of right-to-left.

Marc · April 17th, 2009, 06:00 PM

I've found some useful info;

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il/msg53379.html

1. The table needs to be UTF-8.

2. The connection with the DB needs to be UTF-8 (it is preferred to have
this set as default in my.cnf).

3. PHP must send UTF-8 data in the MySQL query: If the text you enter is
hardcoded inside the PHP code, then the PHP file, as you edit it in your
text editor, must be saved with the UTF-8 encoding. If the data comes from
an external application that talks to PHP and submits data via GET/POST,
then it must do so in UTF-8 as well. And finally, if your text comes from a
web form that the user enters, the web page that contains the web form
itself, must be UTF-8, so the browser sends the data as UTF-8. The latter is
the most well-known "trouble maker" for the problem you're facing; It is
easily solved by adding the meta tag: <meta http-equiv='Content-type'
content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />. Also make sure that your web server
does not force a different encoding via HTTP headers; Apache started doing
it at some version in the past, with the AddDefaultCharset directive.

This may help you, if you haven't already done this.

aooga · April 17th, 2009, 06:10 PM

Thanks. However, I think the problem begins before the database. For instance, if you go onto:
http://hypermegaultra.com/newQuestio...xtQuestion=593
If you have hebrew letters installed, typing into the textbox gives the following error, even before any data is submitted to the database: type a word and then a '?', the '?' is put all the way on the right, until the next letter (not the next space), when it is put back on the left. So the database IS accurately reflecting what the textbox displayed, it's just that the standard textbox doesn't put the '?' where I want it to go. Basically, I need the textbox to know that even when I type in '?' or any other language neutral symbol, I still want it to be hebrew, i.e. go on the left and not the right.