[Bidi] Automatic text direction

[Omer Zak]

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.

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

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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