I think that Dov's idea is good one, and I'd be happy to see an implementation of his idea.
Questions, whose answers require experimentation and tweaking: 1. Do we display sources and sinks over all the document or only at the ends of the span, in which the cursor is now? 2. Do we display them all the time (toggled by the user in the same way spaces are explicitly displayed in some wordprocessors, by displaying small dots instead of spaces), or only when the user tries to select text (i.e. automatically)? And if automatically, how do we deal with text displacement when sources and sinks show up/disappear? 3. Is this enough to make it easy to select text, or do we need also to temporarily display text in logical-only ordering (see previous discussion below)? --- Omer On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 09:20 +0200, Dov Grobgeld wrote: > Sorry to join the discussion so late, but I have an idea that I > believe would make both selection and caret position easier for the > user in a BiDi context. The idea is to visually display the points of > direction discontinuity. I like to call these a source when the two > directions diverge, and a sink when the two direction converges. > > Heres an example: > > Logical: abcABCabc > Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|CBA<||>abc > > where |><| is a glyph indicating a sink point and a <||> is a glyph > indicating a source point. If a source and a sink meet they cancel > out. The user may now easily place the caret at the left or the right > side of the source and the sink points, which today is very difficult > to do. > > I hope to create a concept implementation one day. > > I'd be happy to hear comments about this idea. > > Regards, > Dov > > 2008/10/7 Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Hello Jonathan, > > I think I begin to understand what you are trying to > accomplish. It is > indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there > are > several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL, > strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders. > > There are several possibilities for improving the selection > GUI > look&feel in this case: > > 1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by > itself for > blind computer users; not directly related to our problem). > > 2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a > paragraph) > and then manually turn it back on. > > 3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a > piece of paper > when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece > of cloth > while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs > before and 5 > glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we > suppress > ordering of differing glyphs). Have them displayed with > background > having different color. > (The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, > and be > user-configurable through a setup menu. So is the background > color to > be used in this case.) > > 4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around > the mouse > without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions > using the > pop-up display. The regular text display would be unchanged. > > It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in > this, as > Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when > the order > of glyphs is reversed without additional processing. Hebrew > and Latin, > in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse > direction. > > --- Omer > > > > > On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote: > > On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote: > > > > > Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200 > > > From: Omer Zak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > To: linux-il <[email protected]> > > > Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection > > > > > >> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and > me use the same > > > definition of "visual selection". You drag the mouse from > column X to > > > column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever > text which > > > happens to be displayed between those columns (the text > could have been > > > from different spans of the corresponding original text - > "logical > > > text"). > > > > We agree on the meaning of visual selection. > > > > > > > > Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or > whether you > > > really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a > selected text > > > segment and display it"? > > > > No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a > text, do a logical > > selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of > some subset and > > then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi > ordering. Selected > > text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the > unselected > > text. > > > > - yba > > > > > > > > > > --- Omer > > > > > > > > > On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > > >> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote: > > >>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means. > > >>> > > >> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a > continuous block > > >> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually > ordered then the > > >> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that > definitions may > > >> vary. > > >> > > >> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all > that useful to > > >> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a > selection > > >> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence > followed by the end > > >> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same > goes for the > > >> beginnings of the sentences combined. -- Did you shave a yak today? 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