Re: `C-b' is backward-char, `left' is left-char - why?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 19:51:10 +0300
> From: "Ehud Karni" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
> 
> On Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:08:57 +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >
> DK> If this is a LR paragraph (like it likely is), left will move right
> DK> in the RRRRRR section and vice versa.
> >
> > True.
> >
> DK> This is what Hebrew writers expect?
> >
> > Yes.
> 
> I don't agree with you.  This is not what I expect, nor any bidi
> novice, this is what Microsoft and openoffice has forced all the
> bidi users to live with.

Let me rephrase: that's what users expect because they were
brainwashed by MS and OpenOffice (and a few more apps that followed
suit).  Users who are brainwash-resistant want strict visual cursor
motion.

OK?

> I expect a strict visual movement, i.e. the right arrow moves the
> cursor to the right, left arrow moves to the left, no matter what
> the language or the paragraph direction.

It's possible to implement this as well, although a bit more tricky,
e.g. because it's not clear how to behave when the next glyph to the
right/left is on a display string or some such.  I also expect
difficulties in continuation lines and such likes.

But I still maintain that the decision to implement the logical
movement first was the right one, both because most users are of the
"brainwashed" variety, and because it is needed for various Emacs
features, such as shift-selections.

> I think I know why Microsoft (and following them, openoffice) did
> this non intuitive choice - They use shift+arrow to select text
> strings and the string must be in adjacent memory locations.

So does Emacs.