I would suggest slightly different logic. Separate the test for determining text direction, and make it something that the user interface can influence (plug-in, default, not sure).
I'm sure Avi would prefer the default went the other way, because probably more of his collection is in Hebrew. But, in general, any heuristic like "guess based on code points" is doomed to failure, because it is a heuristic. Unless unicode encompases rendering direction (does it?), you're guessing about languages you don't know enough about. So make it something the user can influence (or replace?). The rest of the code - how it's implemented - can be built-in as Dean describes. But is rendering direction important? If the characters paint themselves in the other order, is that important? Provided the customer can read them properly afterwards, does anyone care? I'm not sure. It's not a rhetorical question - I really don't know if it matters. For a demonstration project almost 20 years ago, we got a dual-daisywheel printer (or one wheel with both alphabets on it, don't remember) and printed side by side columns of the first page of the hebrew bible (which starts out "In the beginning") and an English translation (I think we used King James but it's too long ago and the details are indistinct). We reversed the string in memory to calculate space requirements, but we actually rendered it left to right, including the hebrew, because it was faster in the hardware and no one reads the type ball as it's typing. -- Michaelwagner _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
