Re: OT (Kind of): Determining whether Locales are left-to-right or

[John Cowan]

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.

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