[Bidi] Automatic text direction

[Ely Levy]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Omer Zak wrote:

> 1. By file type - regular text files and HTML files specify explicit
> directionality by different means.  Windows-1255 and UTF-8 files use
> different character encodings to specify explicit directionality.
> Besides, it is outgrowth of MIME file types handling.

So you would have a rule on how to parse the file to get the right
encoding? do we need to make a lib that parse it by file type?

> 2. I did mention by program (and by GUI control) below.

are we going to override locale information?

> 3. We want to handle HTML/XML tags in an appropriate way, to be
> specified in the ATDSS (Automatic Text Direction Style Sheet) rules.
>
>                                      --- Omer
>
> On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 13:02 +0200, Ely Levy wrote:
> > nice idea:)
> > But why do you need to do it by file type?
> > doesn't it make more sense to do ti by program?
> > I mean we always want to ignore xml tags in direction setting no?
> > why would we want an option to disable it?
> >
> > Ely Levy
> > System group
> > Hebrew University
> > Jerusalem Israel
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Omer Zak wrote:
> >
> > > I suggest that a standard be set for an "automatic text direction style
> > > sheet" rather than for "automatic text direction".  This is because
> > > people may have different expectations from an automatic text direction
> > > algorithm implementation, according to the language with which they work
> > > most of the time at the moment.
> > >
> > > The style sheet (or rather configuration file) will, by default, be in a
> > > standard location (say, /etc/bidi/autobidi, overridable by
> > > ~/.bidi/autobidi).
> > >
> > > The style sheet will specify, for each file type (identified by filename
> > > extension, MIME type, or file contents, according to standard Unix
> > > mechanisms).  For each relevant file type, some rules for setting
> > > automatic text direction will be defined.
> > >
> > > The case of *.xml files will be handled specifically - the automatic
> > > text direction rules will be associated with the scheme, which is
> > > associated with the *.xml file.
> > >
> > > Another special case is the text displayed in GUI controls of various
> > > types in various applications.  For this, we need a standard to identify
> > > application instance, application and control within application, to
> > > which the rules are applicable.
> > >
> > > About the format of the rules themselves:
> > > I suggest that some predicates be defined, according to the rules
> > > already proposed and implemented for automatic text direction.
> > > The predicates will be combined by means of Scheme code.
> > >                                                   --- Omer
> > >
> > > On Mon, 2005-02-28 at 11:54 +0200, Ely Levy wrote:
> > > > Hey,
> > > > I think we should create a standard for automatic text direction.
> > > > There are few issues on how to detect the text direction (RTL or LTR)
> > > > for example numbers should not be the setter of direction, the ability
> > > > to manual override, split text ( for example gaim nick in english line is
> > > > in hebrew or arabic what should be the text direction?should it be splited
> > > > nick from one side text from the other? should it ignore the nick and
> > > > detect it by the text?)
> > > > What about html text?how do we ignore tags as direction setters?
> > > >
> > > > the big question, can a good autodetect actually be done? or should we
> > > > give up on it and do maunal setting only?
>
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