beta.quran.com
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
As I'm currently working on developing the next version of quran.com (إن شاء الله) I thought I'd take the opportunity to post to our much neglected blog. I've personally never taken up blogging, but I guess it's not too late to start. إن شاء الله I'll keep everyone updated throughout development via this blog.
I'm currently fixing and finishing up the Arabic view of beta.quran.com (beta.quran.com/ar). After mirroring page elements into right-to-left directionality with CSS, I'll need to translate all the English words used in the interface into Arabic.
Tangent:
Fortunately, we've implemented a great localization/internationalization back-end for the new quran.com, so it shouldn't be too difficult. The system not only handles interface localization but we've extended it into content as well so that even individual ayah words can have localized translations for any given language. I designed the system to scale with the intention of, at some point (perhaps when the user/account base is large enough) implement a feedback mechanism allowing users to suggest translations for a given language for both interface keywords and individual ayah words. إن شاء الله the system is capable of handling any language, so we may see in the future quran.com/fr/*, quran.com/de/* and even quran.com/zh/*.
Anyway, after finishing off the Arabic view of beta.quran.com, إن شاء الله I'll start working on the planned "[re]-share" function so that users can start sharing ayahs and making da3wa through Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz. The plan is to set it up in a flexible yet easy to use way, so that the user can choose to share specific resources alongside the ayah (i.e. translations or tafsir if using the Arabic view) and/or post their own comments alongside.
Nour