Re: [emacs-bidi] Re: RTL support

[Ehud Karni]

On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 13:33:54 +0100, Uwe Brauer <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Eli> That's true, and we decided here long time ago to store
> Eli> characters in the logical order in Emacs buffers.  The reasons
> Eli> were not only that most other software in the world made the
> Eli> same decision (and thus if we want to be able to import text
> Eli> from outside we are better off with logical order), but also
> Eli> which way would make common Emacs operations, like searching,
> Eli> easier.
>
> Right, although this is now a long time ago, I recall I gave some lisp
> implementation a try in which a visual method was used. Even
> Ehud version (which was by far the best around) did not do line
> breaking very well. I tried to set up my own and did not succeed in
> anything really usable, so I am not sure whether it is that easy at it
> least not at the lisp level. May be if it is done correctly on the C
> level it is different.

Thanks Uwe. I use Emacs with visual bidi everyday, but I'm aware
to its limitation.
It is at its best when there are short lines (less than the width
of the display), and you enter new data which is mostly of the same
direction (either LTR or RTL). It is at its worst when you have
editing that changes direction frequently.

The import from logical  is not a problem (I have a lisp
function to do it, but you can use external program like fribidi),
but exporting to logical order is problematic and may require
addition of formatting characters.

Ehud


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