Hi I don't wish to open the discussion again. Please don't make it such.
I'm sticking to facts On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Akber Choudhry wrote: > > Let's try to attempt to sum up the issues: I believe that, as many people have pointed out, client-side bidi support (X client or program vs. X server or terminal) can produce optimal results, whereas server-side support is more complicated. Client-side support currently exists in: * CDE/Solaris * QT3/KDE3 (KDE3 is currently in beta) * gtk2/gnome2 (both currently in beta) Since most of the newer programs will be built with either QT or GTK, it seems to me that within about 6 monthes to a year toolkits with bidi support will have a "domminant market share", and hence there is less incentive to add server-side support. At least this is my understanding. > > 1. Understanding the ECMA bidi specifications as Markus pointed out > earlier. IMHO, both the X Server and Xterm (in its ability to interpret a > distinct character stream) should be made bidi compliant. > 2.A bidi solution for the X Server is in the works-based on Open/X CTL Is that true? > 3. Once (2) is complete, there will automatically be rudimentary support > in Xterm for bidi. > 4. It appears from the specifications that new escape codes might have to > be added to allow bidi-aware applications to explicitly instruct Xterm on > bidi requirements.This can then be turned on by an Xterm option, and as > such not interfering with existing functions. > 5. Initially, a very simple modification like (optionally) of reversing > direction based on Unicode range will satisfy a very basic need like- > for example - to be able to use Ar/Heb/Farsi/Urdu strings in grep - and > should not hurt anyone else. It will only show the text in the proper way. > May not full bidi - but a good start. Basically: filter everything through "bidi algorithm" (not reversing!). xterm/patch27 does this resonably well (although it segfaults once in a while). I have yet to try mlterm, but I understand that it it also has at least this basic functionality. > > Proposed course of action - let us phase it in in TWO phases - > (1) rudimentary support - on which we might achieve a consensus now - > basically displaying text the "right" way without any application or Xterm > being bidi-aware. > (2) while at thesame time researching full support and reporting back on > progress in other areas - full bi-di aware applications and Xterm. Note that Julius (?) mentioned that if a kludgy implementation exists, there is less incentive to develop a good implemention. Anyway, some people seem to think that such efforts are better directed at a bidi support in e.g. ncurses (client-side bidi support). (And yes: efforts wasted at writing emails are efforts not wasted. I know) -- Tzafrir Cohen /"\ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign Taub 229, 972-4-829-3942, X Against HTML Mail http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir / \ _______________________________________________ I18n mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/i18n
