On 05/12/2012 08:54, Vafa Khalighi wrote: > >> >> At the moment, I'm looking specifically at what we need to worry about >> at a low level. For example, the current expl3 code does not take any >> notice of direction, which is probably right for something like \hbox:n >> (follow whatever is going on around it), but should be documented and >> deliberate, not just something we've ignored. So what's important at >> this stage is much more the concepts than trying to write any code, >> although any thoughts on what is required for RTL support at the 'base >> level' are of course welcome. > > > For the boxes in luatex you can change directions: \hbox dir TRT{...}
I was thinking more at the level of something like \hboxR/\hboxL as defined by bidi, plus perhaps some form of test similar to \ifmmode. Then again, I have no idea what is needed beyond certain small contexts (for example ensuring LTR for units). >> For pdfTeX that's not an issue: I doubt very many people use pdfTeX for >> RTL. > > Well, there are two groups of people. The first group use ArabTeX which does > not > make any use of TeX--XeT and it works with Knuth TeX too. The second group > also > are Hebrew and Arab users; some of them still use babel. > >> XeTeX is a bit more 'interesting': I guess the existence of bidi >> means that people are using XeTeX for 'real life' RTL work, despite >> limitations. > > Considering bidi has improved the situations and made things cleaner and > simpler, yes. Right, so some more thinking required here. The question is what is sensible for new content: from what you say about TeX--XeT and bidi, using pdfTeX/XeTeX is not currently to be recommended for RTL work (although I guess this would change if XeTeX switches to the Omega approach). -- Joseph Wright -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex