On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Marco Cimarosti wrote:
> I am not sure that I catch what you mean here.
>
> My simplified view was that each visual segment of text (i.e. one or more
> adjacent characters at the same level) should have the opposite
> directionality than the two segments around it.
If you open a file that contains two adjacent runs at the same level, will
you make them one run when you write the file?
> The adjacent levels 0 and 2 would be against my scheme, but no doubt they
> are necessary. So my first idea was to add a zero-width odd-level character
> (represented by "*" below) between the two adjacent even-level characters:
This may be a solution the problem I mentioned. You can keep that between
those two runs. But again they are one run in terms of bidi algorithm. But
again why may want one
But only in the buffer, ok? Users don't like invisible characters.
> This is also consistent with expressions like "higher level" and "lower
> level".
Please do not play with the terms. We may come with an implementation that
prefers to put the arrow over the text, with the smaller arrows higher,
simply because the developer got the higher and lower idea ;))
> Just, when you select text the lowest level in the selection is arbitrary
> (e.g., 27 or 46) I think that this lowest level should be adjusted to 0 or
> 1, and all the other levels adjusted to maintain the same difference with
> the lowest level.
Yes, it should. Good point to note. Even UAX #9 explicitly notes that
adding two to all levels will make the same reordering.
> I also had another thought: keyboard entry could work exactly as clipboard
> pasting. I mean that there is actually no reason for having directionally
> neutral characters. All keys could become mini-clipboards: a character (or
> sequence) already tagged with embedding levels (0 or 1).
I really need this! MS Word 2000 somehow handles this, it won't play with
a parenthesis that's typed right-to-left.
But I think that a "neutral neutral" is also needed. When you are in an
Arabic keyboard mode, a space is surely a right-to-left space. But what
about a Hebrew one where people use the shifted keyboard for Latin? Would
someone jump in and help? I almost know nothing about Hebrew...
--roozbeh
