Bidirectional Text and UI: A Tutorial
A number of scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu, write their letters horizontally on a page or screen, running right to left. A complication for these scripts is that other characters, such as digits, flow left-to-right, and can occur on the same line, or even alongside other left-to-right text, such as Latin. Text that handles both right-to-left and left-to-right text is called “bidirectional” text (“bidi” in short).
How to handle bidi text on browsers and in other software is challenging for both general users and implementers. This tutorial will describe the basics with examples. It will go into some depth on the common issues faced such as formatting dates and times. How to debug bidirectional issues. It will be followed by time for question-and-answers.