https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162200
Bug ID: 162200
Summary: "Text direction" in page style dialog, with both Asian
and RTL-CTL, is inconsistent and confusing
Product: LibreOffice
Version: 24.2.4.2 release
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: Writer
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
When describing text on a page in LibreOffice, we use the categories
"direction" and in some cases "writing mode", whose values may be (assuming
RTL-CTL and Asian language support is enabled):
"Right to Left (Horizontal)"
"Left to Right (Horizontal)"
"Right to Left (Vertical)"
"Left to Right (Vertical)"
The parenthesized word indicates whether lines are oriented so that they extend
progress horizontally or vertically on the page, and whether subsequent lines
are placed at a vertical offset (for "Horizontal") or horizontal offset (for
"Vertical"). That part is ok.
Now, what does the RTL or LTR part mean? Here is the problem:
For "Vertical", it means the direction in which additional lines fill the page:
RTL means the first line is on the right side of the page, the second light is
to its left etc., filling the page towards its left. LTR means the first line
is on the left side, and additional lines fill the page towards its right.
What about "Horizontal"? Consistency, and symmetry, would suggest that we don't
see "Right to Left" and "Left to Right" here, but rather "Bottom to Top" "Top
to Bottom": Whether the first line is placed at the top of the page and
additional lines placed further down, or the first line is placed at the bottom
and additional lines placed further up.
Instead, RTL and LTR for the "Horizontal" case mean the default intra-line
direction: Are subsequent same-direction stretches of text placed to the right
of their predecessors, or to the left of their predecessors.
That is inconsistent, and confusing, IMNSHO.
Now, when Asian languages are disabled - everything is "fine": We only have the
Horizontal case; we assume that lines start at the top of the page; and all we
care about is the intra-line (or intra-paragraph) direction.
I believe we need to change the dialog here:
Option I
=========
1. When Asian languages are enabled, a different combo box will be presented,
with label "Writing Mode:", and values:
"Horizontal, Top to Bottom"
"Vertical, Right to Left"
"Vertical, Left to Right"
with semantics as I have suggested one would expect (and _not_ as they are in
CSS). A "Horizontal, Bottom to Top" option is missing, as we don't support it
and it's not been requested (and CSS doesn't support it either).
2. The "Text Direction" box will _always_ have just two options, RTL or LTR
(and inherit/use-superordinate), like CSS' direction attribute [1].
Option II
==========
Same as option 1, but the "Text Direction" box will have RTL and LTR for a
horizontal writing mode, but for Vertical writing modes, the box will have the
options "Top to Bottom" and "Bottom to Top".
This will correspond to how, in Vertical writing modes, the paragraph direction
buttons' graphics is reoriented, so that the arrows point from top to bottom or
from bottom to top.
Note: It may also be useful to add a default text orientation setting for the
page style, a-la CSS text-orientation [3]; or to support the "Sideways" writing
modes.
[1] : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/direction
[2] : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/writing-mode
[3] : https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-orientation
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