Re: Arabic-Emacs questions

[TAKAHASHI Naoto <ntakahas at m17n dot org>]

Nadim Shaikli writes:

>> I do not understand.  I created a file that contains four lines of
>> 
>> > DAL-FATHATAN-NOON
>> > DAL-MEEM
>> > DAL-NOON
>> > DAL-KASRA-NOON
>> 
>> and hit C-s ] ("]" for DAL).  Then
>> 
>> 1. The DAL-FATHATAN composion is temporarily released.

> The "release" is the issue -- I don't think its natural to see this
> release.

OK, now I understand what you mean.  Since I do not have Arabic
speakers' intuition of "naturalness", your suggestions like this one
are very valuable.  How to implement, however, is another issue, of
course.  :-)

> I would tend to think that it would look more natural to include the
> FATHATAN and have the cursor be placed on the NOON (ie. not to break
> that tanween composition bond).

>> These are expected hehaviour, arn't they?

> Technically yes, but it looks and feels odd.  I would tend to think
> a more natural solution would be what I had suggested.  Include all
> the tanweens in the searches unless a tanween is included in the
> search string itself upon which time a more selective search would
> ensue.

Noted.

>> Are you saying that incremental-search should behave as if tanweens do
>> not exist in the buffer?

> Yes, unless the user includes a tanween in his/her own search.  Tanweens
> are emphasis characters and unless a person includes them in his/her
> search, I would tend to think it would be more natural to ignore 'em
> (visually though, they ought to be included and highlighted; the "release"
> should not happen).

>> Again, are you saying that TATWEEL should be invisible (like tanweens)
>> for incremental-search unless the user explicitly specifies?

> Yes; they should be highlighted though.  If the user, on the other
> hand, specifies tatweel as part of his/her search then the search
> should be a "strict" search in which tatweels ought not be ignored.

Hmm...  Then we must provide another incremental search, say
isearch-forward-arabic, which behaves as if the user is searching a
regular expression in which each base letter is followed by zero or
more tanweens.  Since we already have isearch-forward-regexp, it
should not be so difficult to implement.

By the way, I thought tanweens are rarely used in written Arabic.
They are used only in the Qur'an and elementary textbooks, aren't
they?  Frankly speaking, I did not expect that you care about
tanweens.

>> > Any comments on the bidi addition (pseudo code) noted earlier to
>> > base line direction according to the first character in the line ?
>> 
>> As I wrote before, the current Emacs cannot change the screen
>> orientation ("base line direction", in your term) in a window.  Thus
>> your idea is technically impossible to implement.

> Ah, so the "toggle-displaying-orientation" is an all or none
> (ie. it affects the entire buffer and can't affect individual
> lines), right ?  If that is the case, then I understand.

Yes, you are right.

-- 
TAKAHASHI Naoto
ntakahas at m17n dot org
http://www.m17n.org/ntakahas/