Hi John,
I think we're saying the same thing: the language of the page is the base
directionality. If the application is localized into Hebrew, then the base
directionality is RTL.
Addison
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Addison P. Phillips Principal Consultant
Inter-Locale LLC http://www.inter-locale.com
Los Gatos, CA, USA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+1 408.210.3569 (mobile) +1 408.904.4762 (fax)
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Globalization Engineering & Consulting Services
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, John Cowan wrote:
> This message is best viewed with a monowidth font.
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > For example, I might look at a page that contains an very large result set
> > from a database query, presented as a table. The results would comprise
> > 90% of the text, let's say, of the document. If the results are all in
> > Hebrew, should I re-layout the page, if the headings and the footer and
> > other information is in English?
> >
> > I think the answer is "no"--in other words, the opposite of what you're
> > saying.
>
> So far so clear. The page as a whole is LTR with RTL inclusions,
> namely the database content, like this (as usual, lowercase is
> LTR text, UPPERCASE is RTL text):
>
> top dogs by country
>
> country firstname lastname
> ------- --------- --------
> u.s. bill clinton
> israel DUHE KARAB
> u.k. tony blair
> syria RASHAB DASSA-LA
>
> > If the *user* locale is en_US, then the page should be laid out
> > for that user's preferences, even if the data itself (in individual
> > fields) is RTL.
>
> But now your message seems to go off the rails. If the application is
> *not* localizable in Hebrew (it insists on presenting header, footer,
> etc. in English), but the browser's locale setting is "il-he", you want
> the page to be presented RTL with the header and footer as embedded
> LTR, like this?
>
> top dogs by country
>
> lastname firstname country
> -------- --------- -------
> clinton bill u.s.
> KARAB DUHE israel
> blair tony u.k.
> DASSA-LA RASHAB syria
>
> > > If a user requests a page that contains data that could, potentially, be in
> > > multiple languages. What criteria does one use to determine directionality
> > > of the page? The directionality of the *text* is implied by each data
> > > element itself. But what about the page?
>
> My view is that the base direction of the page is the direction of the fixed
> elements on the page. If these fixed elements are in English, the base
> direction is always LTR. If the fixed elements are localizable based on
> the browser settings, then whatever language/script they are localized
> into determines the base direction.
>
> In short, Example 1 good, Example 2 bad, no matter what the browser setting is.
> Of course, if the application can cope with an "il-he" browser setting and
> render the fixed elements into Hebrew, then the base direction should be
> RTL.
>
> --
> There is / one art || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com
> to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
> with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein
>
