Add Persian (Farsi) notification support

Hi,

Please add display instinct support for Persian (Farsi) characters, which is very similar to Arabic characters, with some (less than 8) character differences...

People from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Pakistan and some from Bahrain, Iraq, India and european countries text in Persian (Farsi).

Full persian support is not what i said, just support to display smart notifications written in Persian.

Top Replies

  • over 4 years ago in reply to MMKH +1 verified
    Thanks for your GREAT help trux. So, how to contact Garmin now? Do they read these posts?

    You are welcome. Localisation of software and hardware was part of my job, formerly. 

    I do not think that…

All Replies

  • I am afraid this may not be technically possible on Garmin Instinct, since even some newer Garmin watch models do not fully support Unicode. You may need to wait for a watch with full Unicode support. I am not even sure whether Fenix 6 already has a full Unicode support, but you could ask other users on the Fenix 6 forum.

  • Thanks trux for your reply,

    I know that, you are right about unicode with some japanese & etc languages, but Arabic is currently FULLY supported on instinct (and currently is available as a selectable language for watch's display in settings). Persian is very very similar and 90% common with Arabic, so i think it isn't much difficult for GARMIN to add support for it (Just for display it correctly in smart notifications).

  • Yes, you are right, Arabic is available, which means the Arabic alphabet part of the Unicode is included in the firmware. Unfortunately, although the Farsi alphabet has many characters similar, it is still encoded in its entirity as a completely separate section in the Unicode table. It is not just about adding couple of missing characters. Purely technically, a remapping or a transcription to the Arabic alphabet might be feasable, but it would not be as trivial change as it may look. And for including another full alphabet into the firmware, there might not be enough room.

    Perhaps the APAC (Asia-Pacific) versions supports Farsi, since it already uses several different character sets. Did not you try finding out, from someone who has the APAC version? 

  • trux,

    I didn't know anyone who owns an APAC version... Can i install APAC firmware on my Instinct Tactical?

  • I didn't know anyone who owns an APAC version..

    Check out threads in the Instict forum mentioning APAC - there is a number of  Instinct APAC owners here. Try pinging them by posting to their thread - I believe the private messaging does not work here (or you have to allow it explicitly). Reuesting a friendship could get their attention perhaps too.

    Can i install APAC firmware on my Instinct Tactical?

    I am not sure about that. I would tell it should be possible, but there is a note on the Update page, telling:

    "WARNING: If this software is uploaded to a device other than that for which it is designed, you will not be able to operate that device. If attempts to upload software fail, you may need to return the device to Garmin® for service."

    And it is unclear whether it concerns only watches different than Instinct, or different than Instinct APAC too. Personally I would be a bit scared by the possibility to brick the watch. If you try it, be aware of the risk.

    The APAC firmware 5.70 is below. There is the version 6.10 just about to be released in a few hours.

    https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=14427

  • Can i install APAC firmware on my Instinct Tactical?

    No you can not, but there is a workaround another user posted a while back.  If the APAC version indeed supports Farsi, someone with that file will have to send it to you.  You then have to put the file in the Garmin folder, rename the file to one your watch currently supports and then select that language file as default.

  • If the APAC version indeed supports Farsi, someone with that file will have to send it to you.

    The language file will not be usable if the watch does not have the Farsi alphabet. The file only translates texts, menus, and labels of the watch. It won't help with the notifications and messages coming from the phone.

    And as for the translation of the language file to Farsi - although this is not what MMKH was looking for, in fact he could do it himself, and even without having the Farsi alphabet on the watch. As long as he can use Arabic (and Latin) letters for transcribing the Farsi texts, there will be no problem.

    He could even try using the true Farsi alphabet, and see how it displays on the watch. If Farsi characters from the language file display all right on the watch, it may mean that the problem with displaying Farsi notifications may be caused by wrong parsing either by the phone, the GC app, or the watch, but the existence of the Farsi fonts would show that fixing it should be relatively easy.

  • He could even try using the true Farsi alphabet

    I tried that. Copied Arabic ./TEXT file, edited it and added some of those ~6 characters (which are the ONLY differences between Arabic & Persian)

    I've then Restarted device & selected Arabic. Menus and displayed texts are exactly same as how they was on notifications... 4 characters of those ~6 characters are shown as a square with a question mark in it, and 2 other characters even not shown as anything! (seems they just ignored...). This is exactly how it looks when a Persian notification arrives.

  • Yes, that's exactly what I expected. The Farsi section of unicode fonts is simply not present on the phone, hence it cannot be displayed. Did you try contacting anyone with the APAC version, to see whether it is any different there? If not, as I suggested, a transcription app on the phone would solve it. It could transcript the texts into Arabic and/or Latin, so the notifications could be better readable. If the Farsi community is large enough, you certainly find someone capabe of developing it. Or try with a newer Garmin model, having a larger Unicode support.

  • This alphabet difference is very short in size... I think, around 20 Bytes at all! and this would be able to take place easily on Instinct's firmware...

    I have sent it to Garmin support...