right-to-left input methods needed

[Stephen Gildea]

Languages that write right-to-left, such as Arabic, Persian, and
Hebrew, don't seem to be supported well by Emacs 20.7.  How about
a "direction" option in input methods?

I think I've seen a recognition of this issue here, but let me
weigh in with my ideas.

For a right-to-left language such as Hebrew, Emacs should not advance
point after inserting a Hebrew letter.  Not advancing the insertion
point would have the effect of pushing existing characters to the
right, giving the desired right-to-left entry.

When writing a document of mostly English with some Hebrew text, it
would be easiest if, when I switched into Hebrew, Emacs saved a mark
at the current point and, when I switched out of Hebrew, returned
point to the saved mark.  This location will be after (to the right of)
the just-typed Hebrew, and it will allow me to continue the English.

This "jump to saved point" behavior should be optional.  I might want
to jump when ...
turning on the right-to-left input method (mostly Hebrew with some English),
turning it off (English, some Hebrew),
either happens (simultaneous authoring of separate paragraphs),
or neither ("it's just too surprising").

It would be nice to auto-intuit when to jump.  Perhaps by examining
the relative amounts of the different language texts?

 < Stephen