Some usability quirks in zekr 0.60 (related to english translation)
wessam
I jst came across zekr 0.60 - Alhumdulilah it looks good. A couple of
quirks I have noted (testing in ubuntu 7.04):
1 - The font used in the default sky theme is shocking. From what I
have looked at so far the me_quran font used in the "Uthman taha"
theme is much more correct in terms of tajweed. Please refer to Bug
1772836 on the zekr sourceforge for more details.
2 - In the Help>About - What does the force GC button? If it is used
to debug, remove it (end users will jst click away)
3 - I worked out that the "sychronous" button sets the program to
automatically go to the ayat you select. Can you make tips appear
automatically explaining that this function and all other functions
like ">>" (I thought this meant fast forward through the ayat)
4 - All Suras are listed in arabic (is it possible to allow for a
transliteration and translation of surah names)
5 - In mixed layout mode, english numbers are not shown (all
translations)
6 - Does multi translation work yet? When I select this the only
difference I get is that Arabic numbers are shown as (ayat number-
verse number) as opposed to just ayat number
7 - I cringed when I saw I first looked at the logo - I realised that
the transliteration of the Arabic word is incorrect (unless the
writing is meant to be Urdu) . To understand this more clearly head
over to (http://tajweedinenglish.com/alphabet_14_1.htm) and scroll
over the letter "thal".
8 - "Add New bookmark" should be selectable from the bookmark tab
without having to go into "edit bookmarks
9 - A help file for end users should be created. The man page is good.
Jazaks,
wasalam,
Wessam
Mohsen Saboorian
Thanks for usability notes. Here are some comments:
> 1 - The font used in the default sky theme is shocking. From what I
> have looked at so far the me_quran font used in the "Uthman taha"
> theme is much more correct in terms of tajweed. Please refer to Bug
> 1772836 on the zekr sourceforge for more details.
Scheherazade is the default font for sky theme on Linux. If this is
shocking to you, then probably you don't have that font.
There are two types of Quran text available: basic and detailed Quran
text. Flag "quran_detailedTextFile" (Tools > Options > View > Theme
settings) can be set to true to force Zekr use detailed Quran text
regardless of the selected theme.
There are technical limitations for basic Quran text. We used only
characters available in Cp1256 plus small superscript alef (on top of
Alef Maksuras). Fonts like Traditional Arabic does not support Madda,
Waqf signs, Alef Wasla, and many other characters available in Uthman
Taha mushaf. More, rendering speed with these classic fonts +
simplified text is quite better that newer fonts with detailed text
and this is the reason we have both a simplified and a complex Quran
text.
> 2 - In the Help>About - What does the force GC button? If it is used
> to debug, remove it (end users will jst click away)
To be removed in future releases. It forces JVM garbage collector to
free as much heap as it can.
> 3 - I worked out that the "sychronous" button sets the program to
> automatically go to the ayat you select. Can you make tips appear
> automatically explaining that this function and all other functions
> like ">>"
> (I thought this meant fast forward through the ayat)
:-)
You can see the tooltip if you point mouse cursor on the button (as a
GUI design guideline, all buttons without a text have tolltip text in
Zekr).
Agree about synchronize button. I'll provide a tooltip for that button.
> 4 - All Suras are listed in arabic (is it possible to allow for a
> transliteration and translation of surah names)
TODO for 0.7.0.
> 5 - In mixed layout mode, english numbers are not shown (all
> translations)
Tools > Options > View > Theme settings > set trans_showSuraAyaSign to true.
> 6 - Does multi translation work yet? When I select this the only
> difference I get is that Arabic numbers are shown as (ayat number-
> verse number) as opposed to just ayat number
Yes! See this wiki page:
http://siahe.com/zekr/wiki/index.php?title=Layout#Multi-translation_layout
> 7 - I cringed when I saw I first looked at the logo - I realised that
> the transliteration of the Arabic word is incorrect (unless the
> writing is meant to be Urdu) . To understand this more clearly head
> over to (http://tajweedinenglish.com/alphabet_14_1.htm) and scroll
> over the letter "thal".
It's Persian translitaration of the word.
> 8 - "Add New bookmark" should be selectable from the bookmark tab
> without having to go into "edit bookmarks
This feature requires a separate form (like the one with Firefox), and
so more time and effort. TODO for 0.7.0.
> 9 - A help file for end users should be created. The man page is good.
Wiki is an answer to some documentation needs. I really appreciate any
contributor who likes to create some help pages. Any volunteer?
Regards,
Mohsen.
wessam
I have Scheherazade installed, Some of the harakat which are
interchanged may drastically change the meaning and pronunciation (ex:
the alif wasal rendered as sukoon). I can fully understand the need
for a simplified and complex quran, perhaps all huroof should be
removed from the sky/Scheherazade, something along the lines of the
rasm (writing) of the original mushaf Uthman (RA) sent out [but
implementing dots]. Then the Uthman Taha mushaf can be made into a
full tajweed script. Also the names of the themes should be changed
(perhaps to Clean/Tajweed?). It would make more sense to users.
Oh wow - I just realised those (>, >>, <, <<) tooltips - Jazak Allahu
khair. Perhaps we can sychronise these buttons with audio recitations
of quran in the future... (for 2.0)
I'd be very interested insha Allah in volunteering, just as soon as I
get my new computer up and running fine.
With respect to translations, is it possible that someone verifies
that the english translations are in line with the versions of
translations from project gutenberg?(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/
16955/16955.txt). The Aisha Bewley translation is well known in the
modern english world - on her site she is putting up hizbs of the
translation (1 by 1 http://bewley.virtualave.net/quran.html) - perhaps
we can request full script for the program.
Perhaps links should be setup on the wik to the roadmap. Also a
feature request page and a link to the bug tracker on the sourceforge
project would be useful.
wasalam,
Wessam