Re: bidi at startup

[Stefan Monnier]

>> > Yes, of course.  But when bidi-display-reordering is turned on by
>> > default, bidi_init will _always_ load these 2 files at startup,
>> > whenever it needs to display the first thing on the Emacs frame (mode
>> > line or menu/tool bar, I think).  AFAIK, it has been our policy since
>> > before I remember to preload every Lisp file that is always loaded at
>> > startup.

Yes, if the file is needed when you just run "emacs" with an empty
.emacs file, then it definitely should be preloaded.

>> Is it used when we run emacs with -batch?

That doesn't matter for preloading.

> I think in -batch mode Emacs should not reorder bidirectional text.
> Mainly because if the underlying terminal is bidi-aware, it will
> reorder it by itself, and if it isn't aware, most probably it doesn't
> support the corresponding scripts anyway, and scripts that need
> reordering will come out garbled.

> So I think bidi-display-reordering should be set early during startup,
> but only in interactive sessions, i.e. dynamically.

As mentioned a few days ago in another thread, thinking in terms of
"interactive/noninteractive" session is the wrong way to look at it.
Instead, you want to think about which terminal is used.  E.g. think of
the case of an Emacs server that did not daemonize: some terminals will
be GUIs, others will be ttys, and there'll be one more which is just
stdin/stdout.  IIUC you're saying that the special initial terminal
(bound to stdin/stdout) should not do bib-processing, which sounds fine.


        Stefan