Re: [emacs-bidi] Hebrew input methods

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 18:31:11 +0300
> From: Yair F <address@hidden>
> Cc: Scot Becker <address@hidden>, address@hidden
> 
> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 1:28 PM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Eli,
> would you be king enough to write a vrey simple guide to bidi testing?
> minimal set of bzr instructions.
> flags or special options for config
> changes to .emacs

Nothing special is needed to build a bidi-capable Emacs.  The default
build you get after "bzr up && ./configure && make" has all the bidi
support that there is compiled into it.

As for using it, I wrote this in NEWS:

    ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.

    See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
    initial documentation.

    To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
    `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value.  The default is nil.

    The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
    forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
    according to the value of this variable.  Possible values are
    `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'.  If the value is nil (the
    default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
    its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.

    Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
    bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
    Algorithm.

    Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
    `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
    bidirectional text is reordered for display.

Let me know if this text (or the node in the manual to which it
points) needs some clarifications or additions.

As for testing, just use it with Hebrew text.  You may set
bidi-display-reordering non-nil by default, with setq-default.

If you see any problems, please report them with "M-x report-emacs-bug RET".

Thanks.