Re: [emacs-bidi] Points composition - status.

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> > I think reordering can lead to problems.  For example, what happens
> > if I want to add a diacritical to an already existing character, and
> > then continue inserting other characters without moving the cursor?
> > If you reorder in this situation, you will place the diacritical
> > under the wrong character, won't you?
> 
> Simple: no one should put diacratics before letters.

Not simple at all: ``before'' a letter is almost always ``after'' some
other letter, the one which preceeds it.

> We are only talking
> about the ordering of multiple diacratics after a base letter.

IMHO, this whole issue cannot be discussed without considering
additional aspects.  One such important aspect is how do we delete
characters in the presence of diacriticals?  Does DEL delete the
diacritical that is before point, or does it delete the base character
as well?

The reason why it matters is that a user might want to replace only
one of a series of multiple diacriticals.  Unless we want users to
remove and type the entire series of diacriticals and their base
letter en-bloc (which IMHO would be very inconvenient), we cannot
require them to never type a diacritical without typing a base letter
first.