Nuun: A System for Developing Platform and Browser independent Arabic Web Applications

Abstract

For a human language to reach its full potential in cyberspace, platform and browser independent support for data entry and display are required. Arabic web applications are far from this state of ubiquitous support. Full support is available only under Arabic Windows, while little support is provided under other versions of Windows, and no support at all under UNIX systems .The Nuun toolkit addresses this challenge. Nuun uses an allographic encoding in which each letter form is encoded separately to provide an Arabic display capability in any web browser on any platform. The display capabilities are augmented with an input method that provides the necessary extensions to HTML forms to handle Arabic script. Nuun tools can be used to build interfaces for new or existing web applications that use any Arabic encoding, and can support any language based on the Arabic script (e.g., Persian, Urdu, or Kurdish). Cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-2001-60