ZCode RTL

Make ZCode — Z.ai's AI coding IDE — render Persian (and any RTL language) correctly in its chat.

AI tools assume English. ZCode renders every message left-to-right, so Persian answers look scrambled: punctuation lands on the wrong side and English words jump around mid-sentence. ZCode RTL fixes that with one CSS rule, injected at runtime — the app itself is never modified.

نسخهٔ فارسی: README.fa.md

🌍 Supported languages

Any right-to-left script — direction is detected per paragraph, so English text and code blocks are never touched:

Persian (Farsi) · Arabic · Hebrew · Urdu · Dari · Kurdish · Pashto · Uyghur · Yiddish · Sindhi …

✨ What you get

• Auto RTL per paragraph — each block follows its first strong character: Persian → RTL, English → LTR, even inside a single message
• Mixed text handled — Persian paragraphs containing English words, numbers and file paths stay readable
• Code blocks stay LTR — pre/code are deliberately excluded
• Composer too — the input box auto-switches direction while you type
• Self-healing — re-injects into reloaded pages and new windows automatically
• Invisible — runs hidden in the background: no console window, no taskbar entry
• Lightweight & single-instance — one local HTTP request every 2 s, a few MB of RAM; duplicates exit automatically

🆚 Why not just patch the app?

Approach	The problem
Patching app.asar	Breaks on every app update, needs admin rights, can corrupt the install
Injecting CSS by hand in DevTools	Gone after every reload or restart
Copy-pasting answers elsewhere to read them	Leaves your workflow every time
Waiting for official RTL support	🙂

ZCode RTL touches nothing inside the app: it uses the app's own Chromium DevTools port to inject one stylesheet at runtime. App updates don't affect it, no admin rights are needed, and uninstalling is one command.

🚀 Install (pick one)

One command — PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ahmadkhanloo/ZCodeRTL/main/install.ps1 | iex

or clone and install:

git clone https://github.com/ahmadkhanloo/ZCodeRTL.git
cd ZCodeRTL
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install.ps1

or grab the zip from Releases, extract, and run install.ps1.

Requirements: Windows, ZCode installed, Node.js ≥ 21 (uses its built-in WebSocket).

▶️ Use

Fully quit ZCode (also from the system tray), then start it with the new ZCode RTL desktop shortcut. That's it — Persian messages now render RTL.

The debug port only exists when ZCode is started through the shortcut, so use the shortcut instead of the normal icon.

🧰 Troubleshooting

• Still LTR? ZCode was started from the normal icon. Close it completely and start via ZCode RTL.
• Worked before, stopped after an update? The updater relaunched ZCode without the port. Same fix: close fully → start via the shortcut.
• Is it running? Task Manager → look for node.exe (the hidden injector).
• Uninstall: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install.ps1 -Uninstall — removes the shortcut and any downloaded copy.

🔒 Security note

While ZCode runs via the shortcut it exposes a DevTools port (127.0.0.1:9222) that any local process can reach. It is localhost-only, but keep it in mind on shared machines.

⚙️ How it works

ZCode-RTL.cmd starts ZCode with --remote-debugging-port=9222 and launches a ~100-line Node script (injector.mjs) that connects to the Chromium DevTools Protocol and injects one CSS rule into every window:

:is(p, li, h1, h2, h3, blockquote, td, textarea, ...) {
  unicode-bidi: plaintext; /* direction = first strong character */
  text-align: start;
}

plaintext lets every paragraph pick its own direction, so one message can contain a Persian paragraph and an English one — each rendered correctly. Code blocks are excluded and stay LTR.

License

MIT — the bundled Vazirmatn font (used in the banner) is under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.