Re: per-paragraph auto-direction, a.k.a. dir=uba

Whether the default behavior of <textarea> should / can change is a separate
question. But to achieve this more limited goal without running into the
problems described above, we could allow dir=uba on just two elements:
<textarea> and a new element that we could call <textareadiv> or perhaps
<plaintext>. The latter would be just like a <pre> except that:

   - It would not allow mark-up (in the same way that <textarea> does not
   allow mark-up).
   - It would have the same script-accessible properties as <textarea>,
   including a settable value property.

In other words, it would be the output counterpart of <textarea>. In terms
of CSS, dir=uba would result in unicode-bidi having the new value "uba"
(which is only allowed on <textarea> and <plaintext>); the element would
inherit direction as normal, but its effect under unicode-bidi:uba would be
limited to when the content is completely neutral.

Aharon

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 2:46 AM, Behdad Esfahbod <behdad@behdad.org> wrote:

> On 08/24/10 17:37, Adil Allawi wrote:
> > I think this is a lot of work for a feature that, I believe, has limited
> > benefit and can be adequately described using JavaScript. Again, it
> > falls down to the use-case. Unless there is an overwhelming need for
> > this feature and I would not want to jeopardize the whole proposal for
> this.
>
> I think it will be very useful for bidi users if textarea behaves in the
> dir=uba manner.  We type in long long text in plan textareas every day.
>  Take
> facebook, blogger comments, etc.
>
> behdad
>