Have you ever wanted to search on the web for, say, [أخبار الرياضة] or [الوطن العربي] but were unable to enter the search phrase because you don't have an Arabic keyboard? Are you slow typing with an Arabic keyboard because you are mainly using an English one? Have you ever wanted to write a forum post in Arabic but all what you have is an English keyboard? Webmasters, have you ever wanted your website visitors to search or type a comment in Arabic even though they don't have an Arabic keyboard? If so,
Google ta3reeb can help !
The idea started with few Arabic engineers at Google wanting an easy way to search and chat in Arabic but didn't have an
Arabic keyboard. It evolved into a product that we decided to offer to our Arab users to give them more flexibility and enhance the user experience.
You can use
ta3reeb to write an email in Arabic to your friend who doesn't understand English well or post a message to an Arabic forum, you can start writing your message with "Azizi Mohammad, alsalaam alaykom ..." and
ta3reeb will give you the Arabic equivalent "... عزيزي محمد، السلام عليكم".
Last week I was chatting with a friend in London who is learning Arabic and wanted to send me a message in Arabic but said he doesn't have an
Arabic keyboard. I sent him a link to
ta3reeb and he found it very helpful and had no clue that something like that existed !
As a website owner, you can offer
ta3reeb to your users by integrating the
ta3reeb API. Now your website visitors, who don't have an Arabic keyboard, can post comments about the last Ahly match or post a message in Arabic on a forum about a new cool cell phone.
Google ta3reeb is currently available in several flavors and here are few (and many more to come):
ta3reeb iGoogle Gadget: search Google directly with your Arabic queries written phonetically in Latin.
ta3reeb Editor: write paragraphs or large amounts of Arabic text using English/Latin characters.
ta3reeb API: look for the
Google ta3reeb button in other websites (forums, blogs, etc) to write Arabic directly using Latin characters; or, in case you are a webmaster for an Arabic website where users can input text in Arabic, we invite you to provide the
ta3reeb service to your users. Several Arabic leading websites have integrated the
ta3reeb API including
jeeran.com,
ahly.com,
muslimvideo.com. Please visit our
API page to get more details on how to integrate
ta3reeb with your own website.
ta3reeb Bookmarklet: Use ta3reeb to type in Arabic on any website. For example, you can chat with your friends in Arabic on Gmail, share items with your friends on Facebook, Orkut. Just
add ta3reeb Bookmarklet to your browser Favorites / Bookmarks, and whenever you visit a website, and want to type in Arabic, click on the Bookmarklet you just created.
ta3reeb Custom Search Engine Integration: Arabic website owners who are using
Google Custom Search, can easily integrate ta3reeb and allow their users who don't have an Arabic keyboard to search their website in Arabic.
For more information about any of the above features please visit our
help page.
We are very excited to offer this service to our Arabic users who don't have an
Arabic keyboard and looking forward for more products for the Arabic community to make the information universally accessible and useful.
Posted by Adel Youssef, Mohamed Elfeky, William Kanaan
