Re: implementing BIDI isolates, and make LRM and RLM visible

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Uwe Brauer <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 02 May 2016 17:41:16 +0000
> 
> According
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Bidirectional-Display.html
> the actual BIDI support «does not yet support the isolate directional
> formatting».

That's accurate for Emacs 24.5.  Emacs 25.1 has the full UBA
implemented, including the isolates.

> I presume that has to do with fact that if in one line I mix say Hebrew
> with English text and I want to switch editing between them then, in
> order to do that in any comfortable way (cursor movements etc) I end up
> that the whole buffer will be displayed either R2L or L2R and not the
> individual paragraphs.

I don't understand this, sorry.  Please show what you type, how it
looks on display, and how you wanted it to look, and we can take it up
from there.

In any case, I don't think the issue that bothers you has anything to
do with isolates, because those don't change how Emacs determines the
base paragraph direction.

> In any case I wish I could help implementing this missing feature, but I
> cannot so I simply ask: any plans for the near future?

It's done already.  We are already in the future, just use the latest
pretest of Emacs 25.1.

> Meanwhile I try to use LRM and RLM to deal with such situations. However
> is there a way to make them visible, at least buffer local?

They are visible: they are displayed as thin spaces.  If you want them
more visible, customize glyphless-char-display-control.