RTL Support

Right-to-left (RTL) support is used to display languages, such as Hebrew, which are right-aligned by default. Windows Phone XAML apps support RTL out of the box.

By setting the FlowDirection property on any FrameworkElement object, you can control whether text is presented from left to right (the default) or right to left. For example, a right-to-left flow direction can be applied to a TextBlock as shown:

<TextBlock FlowDirection="RightToLeft" />

Alternatively, a right-to-left flow direction can be applied to all elements on a page, like so:

<phone:PhoneApplicationPage
...
    FlowDirection="RightToLeft">
...
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage>

The FlowDirection property is bindable. The sample’s LocalizabilityViewModel class contains a FlowDirection property. The FlowDirection property of the LocalizabilityView page is bound to this property. When switching to Arabic, the viewmodel changes the flow direction to right to left.

Figure 19.10 demonstrates the effect of a right-to-left flow direction on the sample page.

FIGURE 19.10 LocalizabilityResxView with right-to-left flow direction.