Re: [emacs-bidi] Hebrew input methods

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Scot Becker <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 23:20:25 +0100
> Cc: Emacs BIDI <address@hidden>
> 
> I'll be very glad to get bidi+Hebrew working in Emacs.

Did you try the current Emacs development trunk?  It already includes
initial support for bidi Hebrew, and a simple Hebrew input method is
already in place.  Some advanced features of the Emacs display engine,
such as bidi reordering of strings in overlays and `display' text
properties, do not yet work.  But otherwise editing of Hebrew text
should work reasonably well, including paragraph direction control.

Character composition does not yet work with bidi reordering, so
currently cantillation marks will not be displayed as you'd expect.
Hopefully, it will work by the time Yair finishes his input methods.

Please give it a try.  By the lack of comments and bug reports, I'm
guessing that no one except myself uses it, which is bad for
stabilizing it and weeding out bugs.

> I'm not sure what sort of suggestions you're open to, but having never
> learned to use an Israeli keyboard, I most enjoy using a layout that is
> anglo-friendly, like the' SIL' layout which SBL also offers.
> 
> http://www.sbl-site.org/Fonts/BiblicalHebrewSILManual.pdf

I think it's good to have that as well in Emacs.

> And if the layout can auto-manage the final letter forms, that's a very nice
> plus as well.

Native Hebrew speakers don't expect that, they type the final form
themselves.  We could, of course, have some kind of auto-correction
minor mode, whereby letters are automatically converted to their final
forms when a space or punctuation character is typed.