How to include mixed RTL & LTR text to Report

Hello Vasily,
Thank you very much for your response.
Two questions:

1. Can I renew only the Reporting Subscription?
2. If so will that be compatible with the ASP.NET 15.2.16 version that I have?
   Thank you
   Dov

Hi Dov,
Allow me to follow up with you on this matter:
It is not possible to upgrade only a part of your existing ASP.NET subscription. While it makes sense to reach out to our Client Services (clientservices@devexpress.com) to see if they have any options available, I'd like to mention that two different DevExpress versions cannot co-exist in the same project. So, if you want to leverage the full RTL support exposed at the level of our reporting tools, it will be necessary to update your ASP.NET controls as well, there is no way around that (unless of course, we're talking about two different projects here). Of course, we're trying very hard to preserve the backward compatibility with previous versions of our components, but certain code changes still can be explained. The full list of changes between any two particular releases can be found here: Version History.
Last but not least: mixed RTL+LTR text can be achieved by inserting special non-printable characters into your string that specify the required text direction. Check out my explanation here for more details: XtraReports RTL: bidirectional text drawing.
Feel free to reactivate this thread in case of further questions.

Regards,
Yaroslav

Hello Yaroslav,
Thank you for your follow up. It's still not completely clear to me.
I see in your Buy link that you have a Reporting subscription, does thst mean that it's a stand alone that can work independently of other Platform subscritions? What are the prerequisites for using the Reporting Platform 16.1 version or higher?
In any event I will check out the XtraReports RTL: bidirectional text drawing link.
Thank you very much.
Dov

Hello Yaroslav,
I tried out your solution in XtraReports RTL: bidirectional text drawing basing on Nir's expounded version there.
At first it seemed good but as more LTR text is added within the RTL text there was again a mix up.
This is my code:

C#
private void xrTableCell26_BeforePrint(object sender, System.Drawing.Printing.PrintEventArgs e)  
     {  
         xrTableCell26.Text = FixBiDirectionalString(xrTableCell26.Text);  
     }  

     private string FixBiDirectionalString(string textToFix)  
     {  
         try  
         {  
             char RLE = '\u202B';  
             char PDF = '\u202C';  
             char LRM = '\u200E';  
             char RLM = '\u200F';  
             StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(textToFix.Replace("\r", "").Replace("\n", string.Format("{0}", '\u000A')));  

             System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex r = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("[A-Za-z0-9-+ ]+");  
             System.Text.RegularExpressions.MatchCollection mc = r.Matches(sb.ToString());  
             foreach (System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match m in mc)  
             {  
                 double tmp;  
                 if (m.Value == " ")  
                     continue;  
                 if (double.TryParse(RemoveAcceptedChars(m.Value), out tmp))  
                     continue;  
                 sb.Insert(m.Index, LRM);  
                 sb.Insert(m.Index + m.Value.Length + 3, RLM);  
             }  

             return RLE + sb.ToString() + PDF;  
         }  
         catch { return Text; }  

     }  

     private string RemoveAcceptedChars(string p)  
     {  
         return p.Replace("+", "").Replace("-", "").Replace("*", "").Replace("/", "");  
     }  

xrTableCell26 is a cell containing mxed text.
Your help is much appreciated!
Thank you!
Dov

>>I see in your Buy link that you have a Reporting subscription, does thst mean that it's a stand alone that can work independently of other Platform subscritions?
No, this does not mean that. Reporting is a separate subscription, but it's not a separate module. All our controls share the same core assemblies, and for this reason two DevExpress versions cannot co-exist in the same project.
So, if you're going to create, let's say, a special ASP.NET application that will listed to the incoming requests and generate PDF reports — that is completely possible with a Reporting subscription. However, if you want to embed the reporting module into your current project, you have to update all other DevExpress ASP.NET components as well (which in turn requires a subscription renewal)

>>I tried out your solution in XtraReports RTL: bidirectional text drawing basing on Nir's expounded version there. At first it seemed good but as more LTR text is added within the RTL text there was again a mix up.
My suggestion only concerns non-printable Unicode characters on which the bidirectional text drawing is based. That is not something that works out of the box even in the latest version of our suite as we support only the explicit bidi formatting: if your text does not come with those marks embedded, you have place them manually. So, Mr. Nir has attempted to generalize this approach by patching an already existing string using regular expressions. I've not tested this code and cannot give any comments regarding it. In fact, I imagine that implementing a method that would work correctly for any given bidi example will require some serious programming effort (Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm - Unicode.org). So, that's not something I have any expertise in. At the same time, if you have an example of a string with already explicitly embedded directional marks which is not rendered correctly, I'll be happy to look into it.

Regards,
Yaroslav

Hello Yaroslav,
Thank you very much for your response.
I don't understand what you meant by "My suggestion only concerns non-printable Unicode characters on which the bidirectional text drawing is based. That is not something that works out of the box even in the latest version of our suite as we support only the explicit bidi formatting". Could you please explain?
I also have a question about your code in the  XtraReports RTL: bidirectional text drawing link.
You wrote:

C#
public XtraReport1()  
      {  
          InitializeComponent();  
          char RLE = '\u202B';  
          char PDF = '\u202C';  
          string s = @"I enjoyed staying -- באמת! -- at his house.";  
          StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(s);  
          sb.Insert(21, RLE);  
          sb.Insert(27, PDF);  
          xrLabel2.Text = sb.ToString();  
      }  

The second  Insert is at index 27? How is the position calculated?
AlsoThank you for the Unicode Bidirectional link.
Dov

Dov,
>> Could you please explain?
Sure. I mean that in order to have mixed LTR+RTL text in a single label or table cell one should implement the Bidirectional algorithm, that will position characters differently from their "logical" order. And, there are two ways one can calculate those positions: either automatically, based on the given character characteristics (implicit formatting) or by using the directional marks that are a part of your string (explicit formatting). The latter is what supported by our tools, but you have, of course, actually inserted those marks if your string don't come with them originally.

>>The second  Insert is at index 27? How is the position calculated?
I did it in my head. I just took an example from Wikipedia to illustrate that if you a string with explicit formatting, every character is at its correct position when it comes to rendering this text by our reporting suite.

Regards,
Yaroslav

Hello Yaroslav,
Thank you for your help and attention. I need a little more clarification.

1. You wrote that two DevExpress versions cannot co-exist in the same project.
       If they're two projects in ONE Solution would that work? Two projects being One where the report code resides and Two the Web page where the report is displayed.
2. I want to be sure that if we renew our Asp.Net subscription  that the reports will display bi-directional text by setting of properties without the need of additional code behind. Our reports are mainly in Hebrew(rtl) with English(ltr,usually technical terms, product names and Ids, and numbers) mixed within the Hebrew text.
   Thank you very much.
   Dov