Amidora · Library
How can Hebrew text direction and a surrounding English interface coexist?
Amidora sets Hebrew right to left and English left to right, and its side-by-side view always puts English on the left; check copied excerpts against that layout.
How the reading screen handles direction
Every Hebrew segment in Amidora is set right to left and every English segment left to right, whatever the interface language. The reader offers three displays: Hebrew only, stacked with the English under each Hebrew segment, and side by side. In the side-by-side view the row is fixed left to right, with English in the left column and Hebrew in the right.
Instructions follow the display. With English visible, an instruction that has an English version is shown in English, left to right; in the Hebrew-only view the Hebrew instruction is shown right to left.
Checking a copied excerpt
- Copy from the stacked view if you need both languages; it keeps each pair together.
- Paste into a plain text editor first and look at punctuation and numbers at line ends.
- Compare the order of words with the reader screen, not with the pasted layout.
- Keep the section title and source link so the intended order can be checked.
One leaf in three displays
Modeh Ani opens the Ashkenaz weekday morning preparatory prayers, with the reference Siddur Ashkenaz, Weekday, Shacharit, Preparatory Prayers, Modeh Ani. Its first segment holds one Hebrew line and its English translation. Hebrew only shows the line right-aligned; stacked shows the English below it; side by side shows the English on the left and the Hebrew on the right of the same row.
- Hebrew only
- Hebrew, right to left
- Stacked
- Hebrew, then English
- Side by side
- English left · Hebrew right
Mistakes
- Rearranging Hebrew words because punctuation moved after pasting.
- Assuming the interface language changes the prayer text.
- Copying a side-by-side row and reading it as one sentence.
- Losing an English instruction that only appears when English is visible.
Scope
Direction handling is display behaviour. The texts come from the Sefaria editions listed below, and ECMA-402 describes how dates and numbers are formatted around them; neither decides how a passage is read in a community.