Re: bidi at startup (was: idn.el and confusables.txt)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kenichi Handa <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:02:46 +0900
> 
> > Yes, of course.  But when bidi-display-reordering is turned on by
> > default, bidi_init will _always_ load these 2 files at startup,
> > whenever it needs to display the first thing on the Emacs frame (mode
> > line or menu/tool bar, I think).  AFAIK, it has been our policy since
> > before I remember to preload every Lisp file that is always loaded at
> > startup.
> 
> Is it used when we run emacs with -batch?

That's an excellent question, one that I meant to raise a bit later,
but since we are talking...

I think in -batch mode Emacs should not reorder bidirectional text.
Mainly because if the underlying terminal is bidi-aware, it will
reorder it by itself, and if it isn't aware, most probably it doesn't
support the corresponding scripts anyway, and scripts that need
reordering will come out garbled.

So I think bidi-display-reordering should be set early during startup,
but only in interactive sessions, i.e. dynamically.

Comments?