HOWTO: Hebrew support on any ROM

Hebrew support on any ROM by: maurinet

So I recently acquired a Samsung Galaxy i7500 from Orange in Israel. Because Google hasn’t written their own Hebrew support, the cellular companies here in Israel developed their own code together with Samsung Israel (menus, keyboard, fonts, etc.). The problem is that they are keeping the Hebrew code to themselves and are not planning on sharing it or releasing any updates for the software (I called Samsung Israel and they confirmed that the only software they support and will support, is the pre-installed Cupcake 1.5). Why would they help you in any way? Since you’re “depending” on their software for Hebrew support, they can just “make you” buy a newer phone… or so they thought!

You have learned how to upgrade your phone in this and other forums, and now I’m going to help you add Hebrew support to it. This process will add Hebrew fonts to your phone, you will be able to read and write in Hebrew, but it will not install a Hebrew Locale, that means, no menus in Hebrew.

The credit goes to Gilad Ben-Yossef, he wrote the original “tutorial” on how to do this; but it was in Hebrew and a bit confusing, here you have it in comprehensible English now:

NOTE: You need root for this process to work.

1. Go to the Android market and download the software “GScript Lite”

2. Open GScript, press and hold “Reboot phone” and select “Save to SD.” (This will create a folder called “gscript” in your sd card).

3. Download the file with the Hebrew fonts here.

4. Plug your Galaxy to your PC and mount it

5. Create a new folder on the root of the sd card called “Hebrew” (with a capital “H”).

6. Extract the contents of the zip file “hebdroid.zip” (from step 3) into the “Hebrew” folder that you created in your SD card. At the end of this process you should have eight font files and the LICENSE.txt file.

7. Download the file Hebrew.sh file here.

8. Save the file (hebrew.sh) in the “gscript” folder in your sd card (this folder was automatically created during step 2).

9. Unmount and disconnect your Galaxy from the computer.

10. Open the software GScript Lite. Click the “menu button”, click “Add” and then click “Load file”. Select from the list Hebrew.sh, click on “Save”. The device will run the script and will reboot.

Congratulations! You now have Hebrew fonts and support in your phone, all you need to take full advantage of it is to get a keyboard. Download “AnySoftKeyboard” and its “Hebrew language pack” from the Android Market, that should do it.*

DONE! You now have Hebrew fonts and a keyboard! I’ve heard of some people who installed Hebrew with a different program or in a different way and their text messages in Hebrew didn’t support the “Right to Left” orientation, but with this method, that problem doesn’t exist.

*To use this (or any other) keyboard, go to your phone’s “settings – Locale & text – tick AnySoftKeyboard”. This will activate the keyboard. To choose it as an input method, open any text box (messaging, search, etc.), press and hold on it, click on “Input Method” and chose the keyboard of your preference.

BUGS
Nevertheless, I do have to report 2 bugs that I haven’t found how to fix on the internet yet (it’s a matter of time of course).

Bug #1 – If you receive emails in Hebrew, your Gmail application will display the email subject in “Left to Write” orientation. When you open the email though, it displays the message properly in its “Right to Left” orientation.

Bug #2 – If you have entries in Hebrew in your Google calendar, they will display in “Left to Right” orientation in the main view of the Calendar. When you view the events, they display properly in “Right to Left” orientation. Widgets that display calendar information work ok, no issues there.

You can follow this tutorial to install Hebrew in new ROMS too.

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