Well, I don't see the need of "bidi=normal" and "bidi=override" - it will confuse everyone a lot, and not really needed. If someone has a problem, he just switches to LTR text-box. There are (built-in) shortcut keys: Ctrl+LeftShift in Internet Explorer (in almost every Windows program), Ctrl+Shift+X in Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, etc. (when bidi.browser.ui is working, or when the system locale is a RTL language - it was automatically enabled in Windows XP I've installed, by unluckily not in Manriva Linux; however, most of the people use Windows XP, and it is automatically enabled for them in Firefox; and most of them use Internet Explorer, which has no problem at all with Ctrl+LeftShift), but a button may help. Maybe additional button in the toolbar for switching the text direction.
By the way, Firefox has additional problems, because it preserves the direction of the text even after a line-break; however, it's a known problem, and Firefox users know it - and most of the world uses Internet Explorer. Additionally, the most problems are fixed when switching to LTR.
You may say that some of the users don't know they can switch to LTR - but who will deal with the problems? The more technical users, which edit templates, and know some things about the computers. Including that info about Ctrl+LeftShift and Ctrl+Shift+X. I don't think there is a need to add buttons, but if you want, you can add a button to the toolbar - nothing more. (I'm not sure it's technically possible, but maybe there is a way that a button in the toolbar won't use addButton.)
rotemliss, a writer in all the Hebrew projects, excluding Wikinews
Brion Vibber wrote:
Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 11:53:17 -0400 William Allen Simpson william.allen.simpson@gmail.com wrote:
Reinhardt WIEWE @ torg.is wrote:
In fact, I just tested it by adding:
FORM#editform TEXTAREA#wpTextbox1 { unicode-bidi: bidi-override; }
[snip]
It wasn't a suggestion, it was a question. Please say whether it helps?
As a testing hack I've set up control buttons on one of our test wikis to change the CSS 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' values at edit time.
Here's a copy of the Hebrew Wikipedia main page source; since the test wiki is LTR it shows LTR by default, but you can switch the edit box around with the buttons: http://test.leuksman.com/edit/New_page
(Briefly tested in Firefox 1.5.0.2 and Safari 2.0.3.)
It's pretty ugly, but being able to switch in the unidirectional mode at will might be helpful.
The JS: http://test.leuksman.com/extensions/BidiSwitch/switch.js
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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