Shouldn't RTL be always included in all themes?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
1

Hello,

I hope everyone is doing well.
I am a frequent buyer at themeforest mostly wordpress themes. I live in middle east where the population of internet users are 5% of the total world population (~ 300,000,000 people). I sometimes find it hard for find themes that support RTL and I believe this should be included in all themes for a bigger audience of sale.

Making a theme RTL compatible is pretty simple for those who know CSS well.

Here is a list of the main languages that use right to left scripts:

  • Arabic
  • Aramaic
  • Azeri
  • Dhivehi/Maldivian
  • Hebrew
  • Kurdish (Sorani)
  • Persian/Farsi
  • Urdu

If there are more let me know.

I think this is already a considerable audience to make that small investment to make RTL available in all themes.

Please let me know what are the tech reason behind the fact that most themes are not RTL compatible.

PS. RTL is abbreviation of Right to Left for the languages that start from right side of the paper. More info

2

I fully agree. It is very annoying and the big selling themes should include this.

Notwithstanding, you can get any wordpress theme changed to RTL for a few dollars using freelance sites such as fiverr (or of course envato studios for a more upmarket service!)

3

I understand, but that would make more sale for authors directly on themeforest. Not everyone knows about it. I am fully capable of making an RTL version for the themes, but most themes are forced LTR and it its need lots custom css modification which is time consuming. When I search for a theme I always search for RTL compatible themes first, if I don’t find any then I will buy the best theme and modify it. This means less conversation for most themes on the market.