The Java specification does not include proper suopport for bidi, thus it
cannot claim to support Unicode.
To provide proper support, each visibile item (object, window, message
etc.) which may include text or may include other items that may include
text must have a "base direction" property, either right-to-left or
left-to-right. This property determines the layout of the text and possibly
other UI features. The Unicode specification provides a default in the
absence of such a property, but a proper implementation cannot rely on the
default because it does not work.
For example, HTML 4 and its predecessor RFC 2070 have an attribute to
specify this property. Another example, Microsoft Visual Basic 5 has called
this property "RightToLeft" and supports it with most of its controls.
Java should do the same. If it does not, it will be relying on the
operating system and will not be platform independent.
Jonathan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:39 EDT