Arabeyes

Arabeyes is an Open Source project that is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linux environment. It was established in early 2001 by a number of Arab Linux Lovers.

The project runs a portal for sub-projects such as Arabic free software Unicode fonts and text editor, the "ITL" (Islamic Tools and Libraries) which provide Hijri dates, muslim prayer times and Qibla, and an entire GNU/Linux distribution named [http://arabbix.org/ Arabbix] , which is based on Knoppix.

Located online at arabeyes.org, this network calls itself as a "meta projectthat is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linuxenvironment". It is designed to be a central location to standardize theArabization process. Interestingly, Arabeyes relies on voluntarycontributions by computer professionals and enthusiasts scattered across theglobe.

Like other Free/Open Source Software projects that thrive on the Internet, this one toohas its contributors coming in from different countries and regions.

Arabeye says its priorities are to:

* Address the various font/keyboard-mapping issues (for typing in Arabic)

* Create the ability to write plain-text Arabic easily

* Create the ability to spell-check your Arabic text documents

* Create the ability to send and receive mail through an Arabic interface

* Localize (or translate) Common Graphical-User-Interface (GUI)

* Create the ability to take Arabic text files and create various enriched documents (using computer-based formats such as TeX, Word, etc)

External links

* [http://www.arabeyes.org/ Official Arabeyes site]
* [http://wiki.arabeyes.org/ Official Arabeyes Wiki]
* [http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=Wordlist Free, open source English-Arabic wordlist/dictionary project] - [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34866&package_id=93898 Same project on SF site]