Sitemap style for RTL sites

[joyously]

There is a style for
#sitemap__table tr th {text-align: left;}
even though I put my site in RTL mode, which at first glance seems wrong, but when we were building Twenty Twenty, I asked a RTL native user to test and he said that URLs should always be LTR. So maybe the table heading is correct and the rest of the table needs direction: ltr.

Please ask someone to test in a RTL language.

[joyously]

Sitemap in RTL mode. (My browser default color is yellow.)

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to joyously:

when we were building Twenty Twenty, I asked a RTL native user to test and he said that URLs should always be LTR. So maybe the table heading is correct and the rest of the table needs direction: ltr.

URLs should indeed be displayed in LTR per #16834 and #49949, but I think that only applies to UI.

Not sure if this also applies to machine-readable content like sitemaps. Adding rtl focus so that native RTL users could chime in.

[pbiron]

sitemap-rtl.png is a proposed change to how the sitemaps should be rendered for RTL languages.

It was generated with a patch I have locally. Want to make sure that's the correct behavior before uploading the patch.

Note that the Last Modified column was added via a plugin, and is there to test the alignment of any non-URL columns.

[pbiron]

Related question: I notice that WP_MS_Sites_List_Table does not left-align the "URL" column. Should it?

What is displayed in that column is not a "full" URL (i.e., doesn't display the URL schema/protocol), so maybe that's why it doesn't. Just asking...

[pbiron]

Screen showing the WP_MS_Sites_List_Table with RTL language

[pbiron]

50449.2.diff modifies the CSS so that:

1. the text direction and alignment of the URL column (both header and body) is always ltr and left
2. all other column headers are aligned based on is_rtl() (to override browser defaults to center column headers)
   • the text direction of these columns (both header and body) is already determined by the dir attribute on the html element

[apedog]

When handling RTL URL's - mixed RTL/LTR URLs need be considered.
The domain (as well as scheme/protocol) is LTR, while some of the slugs can be RTL. So URL strings must be LTR for readability. However the URL cells alignment can be RTL.

I have a personal preference for the cells being LTR (as per sitemaps-rtl.png above - having the ​http://example.com align helps readability). But RTL is also common (as per wp-ms-sites-list-table-rtl.png), and I believe this is the current standard for most RLT interfaces (gmail, browsers, etc.). ie. even if a column's strings are LTR, the cells and column will be aligned RTL.

As for that column header's direction - I think consistency with the rest of the headers (RTL) is the way to go, even if the column cells end up aligned to the left. Especially if the latin-charactered "URL" header will get translated to an actual word. Having an RTL word aligned to the left is weird.

[ramiy]

Replying to SergeyBiryukov:

Replying to joyously:

when we were building Twenty Twenty, I asked a RTL native user to test and he said that URLs should always be LTR. So maybe the table heading is correct and the rest of the table needs direction: ltr.

URLs should indeed be displayed in LTR per #16834 and #49949, but I think that only applies to UI.

Not sure if this also applies to machine-readable content like sitemaps. Adding rtl focus so that native RTL users could chime in.

As mentioned in the linked tickets, the URL should be always displayed in LTR, both in LRT and RTL languages. This applies on sitemap too as the sitemap is not only machine-readable, humans use sitemaps too.

[swissspidy]

@ramiy Could you perhaps test 50449.2.diff​ and provide feedback?

[ramiy]

Replying to swissspidy:

@ramiy Could you perhaps test 50449.2.diff​ and provide feedback?

RTL tested. Not good. the th is aligned to left, should be aligned to right.

[ramiy]

The third patch has minor fix for the second patch.

[pbiron]

50449.4.diff​ produces the same results as 50449.3.diff​ but with simpler CSS.

@ramiy can you please verify?

[ramiy]

Replying to pbiron:

50449.4.diff​ produces the same results as 50449.3.diff​ but with simpler CSS.

@ramiy can you please verify?

Tested. Looks good!

[pbiron]

Thank you for your help!!!

[whyisjake]

In 48414:

Sitemaps: Add better support for RTL sites.

While the URLs are intended to be machine readable, they should always be LTR, while other data would be RTL in the sitemap.

Fixes #50449.

Props joyously, SergeyBiryukov, pbiron. apedog, ramiy.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 48425:

Sitemaps: Remove some extra space from WP_Sitemaps_Stylesheet::get_stylesheet_css().

Follow-up to [48414].

See #50449.