RE: Unicode controls vs markup for text direction

Hi Chris,

You're right that if the div contained only text there would be no need for the directional context to be reset on inline text. (although using the dir attribute would also right align text in a block element). But without the dir="rtl" or some control codes the image in the div would appear to the right of the text, rather than the left.

I knocked up a quick example page using the example below (ie. attributes in the div tag rather than an inline tag) at http://www.w3.org/International/datespace/2008/biditextandimage.html

Cheers,
RI 

============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
 
http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/blog/
http://rishida.net/

 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Fynn [mailto:cfynn@gmx.net]
> Sent: 22 February 2008 12:20
> To: 'WWW International'
> Cc: Richard Ishida; 'Tex Texin'
> Subject: Re: Unicode controls vs markup for text direction
> 
> Richard
> 
> In the scenario's you describe why do we even need either mark-up or
> Unicode
> bidi control characters in the first place?
> 
>  >
>  >   <div lang="ar"><img/> TXET CIBARA</div>
> 
> 
> Shouldn't the *default* direction when displaying the glyphs for a string
> of
> Arabic or Hebrew characters always be RTL - even when that string is in
> the
> middle of other (LTR) text?  The characters themselves have a default
> directionality and imo there should be no need to indicate directionality
> except where we need to over-ride the default (e.g. to display a Latin
> string
> as RTL or an Arabic sting as LTR).
> 
> 
> - Chris

Received on Friday, 22 February 2008 13:14:28 UTC