> I assume you mean "a word processor localized in English" rather than
> "a word processor that can't do bidi". If the former, I agree.
That's good. I am just trying to establish what level of '...do bidi.' is
appropriate for my application.
> But note that the chrome of a word-processor (the border, menus,
> etc. etc.) aren't *part* of the document it is editing.
That's true. But to use a contrived example, suppose the word processor
always outputted "Page: x" in English on the bottom of every page, the
argument still stands, as long as it understands bidi it can still format it
as a RTL document.
...And in response to Tex.
>I would spend less time debating which is correct, and simply offer
>a button on the UI to flip the ordering of the page.
Although we cannot have a option to store preferences for particular users,
we will allow users to change the locale during the current session. This
is initially set to the users browser default; but they can change it. We
do not anticipate providing an option that just changes the page
directionality. I believe if the user says 'ar_EG' they should get RTL, if
they say 'en_US' then they should get LTR.
This leads back to the original question I posed. Simply, what is the best
way of going from a locale to a direction?
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
To: "David Tooke" <dtooke@interproinc.com>; <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 07, 2000 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: OT (Kind of): Determining whether Locales are left-to-right or
> David Tooke wrote:
>
> > I don't think it should be based of the application. A Hebrew document
> > written by a user on an untranslated word processor is *still* a Hebrew
> > document.
>
> I assume you mean "a word processor localized in English" rather than
> "a word processor that can't do bidi". If the former, I agree. If the
> latter, it will be sheer gibberish, unless the user is a magician at
> writing his Hebrew LTR, line by line.
>
> But note that the chrome of a word-processor (the border, menus,
> etc. etc.) aren't *part* of the document it is editing.
>
> Take the converse case: the document frame is in Hebrew, with the
> key column on the right, but most of the data is in English. On my
> assumptions, when I look at such a thing, I am a little confused
> because the key column is on the right. But when I select the
> variable part of the text (starting in the upper right corner and
> sweeping to the lower left corner), and copy and paste it to
> a word processor, the logical-order rules ensure that the text
> comes out with the key column on the left again.
>
> > (I am assuming you are not a native speaker of a RTL language.)
>
> I am not.
>
> --
> There is / one art || John Cowan
<jcowan@reutershealth.com>
> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com
> to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
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