Re: bidi-display-reordering is now non-nil by default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:23:13 +0200
> 
> > I wasn't talking about the UI, I was talking mainly about the text we
> > display in the window.  For example, Dired mode can say "I have no
> > bidi", but then it will display file names that use R2L characters in
> > a way that makes them barely readable.
> 
> Because of a setting of bidi-paragraph-direction to left-to-right?  I
> should be surprised.
> 
> > Rmail can say "I have no bidi", but then email messages written in R2L
> > scripts will be unreadable.  Etc., etc.  This happens because R2L
> > scripts from outside Emacs seep into Emacs, whether we want that or
> > not.
> 
> Aren't you confusing the arguments for the setting of
> bidi-paragraph-direction with that of bidi-display-reordering?

Maybe I was confused by your statement, which sounded much broader
than just the paragraph direction:

> Emacs is a desktop environment with at best marginal
> internationalization, and editing texts is only a small part of its
> functionality.  I think it is delusional to prescribe that all modes and
> programming languages should in the name of culture-friendliness be
> thought of as bidirectional by default when virtually no aspect of
> Emacs' user interfaces (short of tutorials in multiple languages)
> departs from English.

This talks about bidirectionality in general, not about paragraph
direction.  If that's not what you meant, apologies for my
misunderstanding.

> > Btw, some small portion of this leaks into the UI as well.  For
> > example, the name of a buffer that visits a file whose name includes
> > R2L characters will be displayed in the mode line and in the
> > appropriate menu items.
> 
> And you would consider it a good idea if the mode line flipped its
> orientation depending on the first directional letter in it?

Are you saying that Emacs behaves like this?  If not, then the code I
wrote already answers this question, doesn't it?

> If you don't want to have people disable bidi-display-reordering as a
> sanity measure (and .emacs cross-pollination is an annoying but rather
> present fact of life), you better be conservative with making
> bidi-paragraph-direction assume a default setting causing significant
> regressions where they serve no purpose even for people using R2L
> languages regularly.

There's no need to threaten.  This whole side track blew the issue out
of proportion.  For the record, I have no objection to changing the
default of bidi-paragraph-direction to left-to-right, and then setting
it nil selectively in some modes.  I also have no objection to leaving
it at nil, and setting it to something else in select modes or buffers
that go by certain names.  I'll let Stefan and Chong decide what is
best.