Arabic keyboard layout for Sailfish OS 5.x - Jolla 2026

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Submitted by tellihichem on Sat, 2026/07/11 - 21:43
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Arabic Keyboard for Sailfish OS

Adds full Arabic (العربية) on-screen keyboard support to Sailfish OS 5.x. Tested on Sailfish OS 5.2.

What's included

  • All 28 Arabic letters on the main keyboard
  • Long-press accents for related letterforms:
    • ا → أ إ آ ٱ
    • ح → ج  |  ه → ة  |  ي → ئ ى
    • د → ذ  |  و → ؤ  |  ء → ئ ؤ
  • Context-aware bottom row: comma key shows ، in normal text, / in URLs, @ in email fields
  • Symbol view (one press): Western digits 1–0, standard punctuation, ؟ ؛
  • Symbol view 2 (two presses): Arabic-Indic digits ١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠, full harakat diacritics (فتحة ضمة كسرة + tanwin + شدة سكون), tatweel ـ
  • Hardware keyboard support: registers the ara xkb layout

Installation

Install via Storeman or pkcon install-local. No developer mode required.

After installing, go to Settings → Text input and enable العربية in the keyboard list.

The package appends its entries to qmldir and hwkbdlayouts.conf without replacing those files, so it is fully safe alongside jolla-keyboard updates. Uninstalling cleanly removes all additions.

Source code

This plugin is open source. Contributions and bug reports are welcome at github.com/open-sailfishos/arabic-keyboard-plugin.

 

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Application versions: 
AttachmentSizeDate
File arabic-keyboard-plugin-1.0.0-1.noarch.rpm12.14 KB11/07/2026 - 21:43
Changelog: 

- Initial release targeting Sailfish OS 5.x (tested on 5.2)
- All 28 Arabic letters, harakat diacritics, Arabic-Indic digits
- Arabic punctuation: ، ؟ ؛
- Hardware Bluetooth/USB keyboard support via xkb ara layout
- Idempotent install/uninstall scriptlets (no file conflicts with jolla-keyboard)