gmane.linux.region.israel

[YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection


What happened to ivrix.org.il?

Java Swing supports visual caret motion but logical selection. The 
engineering decision for selection was based on technical realities 
(read budget) rather than what was best for the bidi user. The asymmetry 
of the situation never sat well with Brian Beck however. There is a chance 
to change this in JavaFX, if it is perceived as adding significant value. 
Is visual selection implemented in any bidi text editor?

How much of an improvement would it be to implement visual text selection 
in OpenOffice, in JavaFX? Would this be a killer feature to add to Hebrew 
OOo?

Regards,

  - yba

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Omer Zak | 6 Oct 19:13

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hello Jonathan,
I think that visual caret motion with logical selection is the best
approach.  I do not see visual selection as an useful feature at all (at
least if it means what I understand it to mean).

If anything needs to be improved, then add, as a feature, a mode to turn
off BiDi ordering in the visual display of a text fragment.  This will
make easier the lives of people, who edit text, which mixes together
several RTL and LTR spans together with plethora of punctuation marks.

Another audience for such a feature is blind computer users, who wish to
edit text in Hebrew.  They read it LTR in Braille, and would like to
suppress the BiDi algorithm for such text.  Therefore, they need to turn
off BiDi ordering for a whole file.

About the best way to implement such a feature (how to
activate/deactivate) and whether the text is to be displayed in-line or
in another window - I'm deferring to other people to make suggestions.

--- Omer

On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 18:50 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> What happened to ivrix.org.il?
> 
> Java Swing supports visual caret motion but logical selection. The 
> engineering decision for selection was based on technical realities 
> (read budget) rather than what was best for the bidi user. The asymmetry 
> of the situation never sat well with Brian Beck however. There is a chance 
> to change this in JavaFX, if it is perceived as adding significant value. 
> Is visual selection implemented in any bidi text editor?

(Continue reading)

headers

Omer Zak | 6 Oct 19:23

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Another point which I forgot to mention in my previous E-mail about the
subject:
I urge everyone to consider carefully changes in the look and feel in
this area.  Especially if Brian Beck is not a regular Hebrew user.

I still remember the debacle in one of the versions of AbiWord few years
ago.  One day, someone with good intentions implemented a feature in
AbiWord, which caused Hebrew letters at word ends to automatically
assume their final form, if they had any - like in Arabic.

The problem was that unlike Arabic, in Hebrew there are cases in which
one wants to leave a letter in word's end at its non-final form (for
example, in acronyms).  Due to this, the "feature" ironically rendered
that particular version of AbiWord unusable for Hebrew wordprocessing.
After outcry, the "feature" was removed.

The feature implementor did not take into account the fact that in
Hebrew, the 5 final form letters have their own code points and their
own keys in the keyboard and people are already used to type them at
word ends.

Unlike Jonathan (who at least asked us), the guy (whom I'm leaving
unnamed) sinned in not first asking actual Hebrew users about the
potential utility of the "feature".
                                         --- Omer

On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 19:13 +0200, Omer Zak wrote:
> Hello Jonathan,
> I think that visual caret motion with logical selection is the best
> approach.  I do not see visual selection as an useful feature at all (at

(Continue reading)

headers

Jonathan Ben Avraham | 6 Oct 19:37

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection


We are talking about a very lengthy focus group and marketing research 
effort, not about springing a new feature on the unsuspecting bidi public.

B.C. Beck at Sun and Doug Felt at IBM implemented bidi supoprt in the ICU 
and Java Swing respectively based on requirements provided by me and Isam 
Abuteir. That was a four-year effort.

  - yba

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:23:57 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Another point which I forgot to mention in my previous E-mail about the
> subject:
> I urge everyone to consider carefully changes in the look and feel in
> this area.  Especially if Brian Beck is not a regular Hebrew user.
>
> I still remember the debacle in one of the versions of AbiWord few years
> ago.  One day, someone with good intentions implemented a feature in
> AbiWord, which caused Hebrew letters at word ends to automatically
> assume their final form, if they had any - like in Arabic.
>
> The problem was that unlike Arabic, in Hebrew there are cases in which
> one wants to leave a letter in word's end at its non-final form (for
> example, in acronyms).  Due to this, the "feature" ironically rendered

(Continue reading)

headers

Nadav Har'El | 7 Oct 22:13

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Mon, Oct 06, 2008, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote about "Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection":
> We are talking about a very lengthy focus group and marketing research 
> effort, not about springing a new feature on the unsuspecting bidi public.
> 
> B.C. Beck at Sun and Doug Felt at IBM implemented bidi supoprt in the ICU 
> and Java Swing respectively based on requirements provided by me and Isam 
> Abuteir. That was a four-year effort.

Even more than four years  Eight (!) years ago I was in a
multilingualization conference in Tsukuba, Japan, presenting Ivrix.
Douglas Felt was also there, and presented the issues and solutions of
bidi support in Java. One of the issues he discussed, which really sank
into my memory, was the issue of caret movement and logical vs. visual
selection. You can see his presentation in

http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/felt/index.htm

Another presentation was given there on a similar topic by Eli Zaretskii
who focused, believe it or not, on the MS-DOS EinsteinWriter (yes, this
editor was an antique even at that time ), and how well it treated
(in his opinion) cursor movement. I'm not sure Eli's opinions were the same
as Doug's:

http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/zaretskii/m17n2000.ps.gz

--

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Tuesday, Oct  7 2008, 9 Tishri 5769
nyh@...             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |If you notice this notice, you'll notice
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |it's not worth noticing but is noticable.

(Continue reading)

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Shachar Shemesh | 8 Oct 06:44

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Nadav Har'El wrote:
>
> Another presentation was given there on a similar topic by Eli Zaretskii
> who focused, believe it or not, on the MS-DOS EinsteinWriter (yes, this
> editor was an antique even at that time ), and how well it treated
> (in his opinion) cursor movement. I'm not sure Eli's opinions were the same
> as Doug's:
>
> http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/zaretskii/m17n2000.ps.gz
>
>   
Haven't read any of the presentations yet - all this is from memory and 
personal experience.

Einstein stored stuff, internally, using a visual memory layout. As a 
result, all reordering decisions were taken during input (rather than 
the way more traditional today - input gets stored in the same order it 
is done, and reordering takes place during output. In fact, input order 
pretty much defines what "logical order" means). As a result, Einstein 
had some pretty unsolvable scenarios which it coped with by having a 
"typewriter mode" - direct visual input of code.

On the major plus side - this mode was clear to everyone. No one had to 
ask themselves "what should I do in order to get the right result?". On 
the negative side, the world has gone past the age of fixed width 
non-editable text input.

Einstein is a fond memory as far as simplicity goes, but there it ends. 
I do NOT want to go back to that. I worked with it too long ago to 
remember the details, but I vaguely remember the sigh of relief I had

(Continue reading)

headers

Shachar Shemesh | 8 Oct 07:19

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>
> Einstein is a fond memory as far as simplicity goes, but there it 
> ends. I do NOT want to go back to that. I worked with it too long ago 
> to remember the details, but I vaguely remember the sigh of relief I 
> had when I moved to logical order editors as far as line splitting and 
> English text in Hebrew paragraphs. If anyone has a copy of Einstein 
> around, I'll be glad to play with it and refresh my memory.
Hmm....

So I downloaded Einstein, and after a couple of minutes I failed to find 
any of my old frustrations. Picture at 
http://www.lingnu.com/files/einstein.png

Things to notice in the above picture:

    * When in the middle of typing English text, and typing a neutral
      (apostrophe for the "don't"), it appears at the "wrong" end until
      we type the letter immediately after it, same as with new editors.
      If Einstein didn't solve it, I doubt this "problem" has a solution.
    * The selection is logical
    * The cursor can be outside of the typed area, making much of the
      "position at end - position at beginning" debate moot. Of course,
      this is only possible because the editor is a monospace creature.

Does anyone remember how you tell it to switch to an English paragraph? 
All I could manage were Hebrew paragraphs aligned left.

The main thing I noticed is that the cursor is a block rather than a 
line, covering a letter. This has UI implications as far as "how do I

(Continue reading)

headers

Ori Idan | 8 Oct 09:56

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 6:44 AM, Shachar Shemesh <shachar-bG81FZYBAlipwFb5G8XvHQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:

Nadav Har'El wrote:

Another presentation was given there on a similar topic by Eli Zaretskii
who focused, believe it or not, on the MS-DOS EinsteinWriter (yes, this
editor was an antique even at that time ), and how well it treated
(in his opinion) cursor movement. I'm not sure Eli's opinions were the same
as Doug's:

http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/zaretskii/m17n2000.ps.gz

Haven't read any of the presentations yet - all this is from memory and personal experience.

Einstein stored stuff, internally, using a visual memory layout. As a result, all reordering decisions were taken during input (rather than the way more traditional today - input gets stored in the same order it is done, and reordering takes place during output. In fact, input order pretty much defines what "logical order" means). As a result, Einstein had some pretty unsolvable scenarios which it coped with by having a "typewriter mode" - direct visual input of code.

On the major plus side - this mode was clear to everyone. No one had to ask themselves "what should I do in order to get the right result?". On the negative side, the world has gone past the age of fixed width non-editable text input.

Einstein is a fond memory as far as simplicity goes, but there it ends. I do NOT want to go back to that. I worked with it too long ago to remember the details, but I vaguely remember the sigh of relief I had when I moved to logical order editors as far as line splitting and English text in Hebrew paragraphs. If anyone has a copy of Einstein around, I'll be glad to play with it and refresh my memory.

Shachar

As much as I remember, Einstein stored text in logical not visual way.
It was Qtext who stored the text visually.
In those days I wrote a DOS word processor that worked very similar to Einstein. I don't recall what I did regarding neutral characters.
If someone wants it I guess I can find the binary and sources.
It was written in C++ using Borland C++ builder 1.0

--
Ori Idan

headers

Jonathan Ben Avraham | 8 Oct 09:08

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hi Nadav,
Thanks for adding this historical note. Indeed there were others involved 
as well, Waleed Husny from IBM Egypt (now at Sun) who did much of the AWT 
RTL support. Helpful comments were also received from Matitiahu Allouche 
of IBM and Yura Gauchman of Oracle. Thanks to all who participated.

  - yba

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Nadav Har'El wrote:

> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 22:13:22 +0200
> From: Nadav Har'El <nyh@...>
> To: Jonathan Ben Avraham <yba@...>
> Cc: Omer Zak <w1@...>, linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> On Mon, Oct 06, 2008, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote about "Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection":
>> We are talking about a very lengthy focus group and marketing research
>> effort, not about springing a new feature on the unsuspecting bidi public.
>>
>> B.C. Beck at Sun and Doug Felt at IBM implemented bidi supoprt in the ICU
>> and Java Swing respectively based on requirements provided by me and Isam
>> Abuteir. That was a four-year effort.
>
> Even more than four years  Eight (!) years ago I was in a
> multilingualization conference in Tsukuba, Japan, presenting Ivrix.
> Douglas Felt was also there, and presented the issues and solutions of
> bidi support in Java. One of the issues he discussed, which really sank
> into my memory, was the issue of caret movement and logical vs. visual
> selection. You can see his presentation in
>
> http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/felt/index.htm
>
> Another presentation was given there on a similar topic by Eli Zaretskii
> who focused, believe it or not, on the MS-DOS EinsteinWriter (yes, this
> editor was an antique even at that time ), and how well it treated
> (in his opinion) cursor movement. I'm not sure Eli's opinions were the same
> as Doug's:
>
> http://www.m17n.org/conference/m17n2000_all_but_registration/proceedings/zaretskii/m17n2000.ps.gz
>
>
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 08:28

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hi Omer,
The ability to turn off bidi ordering in effect allows visual selection, 
whether the base direction is RTL or LTR. This might be a good feature to 
have in any event.
Regards,

  - yba

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:13:34 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Hello Jonathan,
> I think that visual caret motion with logical selection is the best
> approach.  I do not see visual selection as an useful feature at all (at
> least if it means what I understand it to mean).
>
> If anything needs to be improved, then add, as a feature, a mode to turn
> off BiDi ordering in the visual display of a text fragment.  This will
> make easier the lives of people, who edit text, which mixes together
> several RTL and LTR spans together with plethora of punctuation marks.
>
> Another audience for such a feature is blind computer users, who wish to
> edit text in Hebrew.  They read it LTR in Braille, and would like to
> suppress the BiDi algorithm for such text.  Therefore, they need to turn
> off BiDi ordering for a whole file.
>
> About the best way to implement such a feature (how to
> activate/deactivate) and whether the text is to be displayed in-line or
> in another window - I'm deferring to other people to make suggestions.
>
> --- Omer
>
>
> On Mon, 2008-10-06 at 18:50 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>> What happened to ivrix.org.il?
>>
>> Java Swing supports visual caret motion but logical selection. The
>> engineering decision for selection was based on technical realities
>> (read budget) rather than what was best for the bidi user. The asymmetry
>> of the situation never sat well with Brian Beck however. There is a chance
>> to change this in JavaFX, if it is perceived as adding significant value.
>> Is visual selection implemented in any bidi text editor?
>>
>> How much of an improvement would it be to implement visual text selection
>> in OpenOffice, in JavaFX? Would this be a killer feature to add to Hebrew
>> OOo?
>
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Shachar Shemesh | 7 Oct 08:52

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> Hi Omer,
> The ability to turn off bidi ordering in effect allows visual selection,
No. It just allows logical selection in a visually consistent way.

Shachar

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 08:58

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:52:01 +0200
> From: Shachar Shemesh <shachar@...>
> To: Jonathan Ben Avraham <yba@...>
> Cc: linux-il <linux-il@...>, Brian C. Beck <brian.beck@...>,
>     Alan Yaniger <alan@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>> Hi Omer,
>> The ability to turn off bidi ordering in effect allows visual selection,
> No. It just allows logical selection in a visually consistent way.

Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.

  - yba

>
> Shachar
>
> =================================================================
> To unsubscribe, send mail to linux-il-request@... with
> the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
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>
>

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Shachar Shemesh | 7 Oct 09:09

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>
Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block 
of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the 
selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may 
vary.

I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to 
me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection 
containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end 
of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the 
beginnings of the sentences combined.

Shachar

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 09:19

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hi Shachar,
If you turn off bidi ordering an display the characters of a mixed text 
from RTL or from LTR in the order that the characters were entered, then 
logical text selection is identical to visual selection to the user. This 
is what Omer suggested. I believe that it would be very helpful to users.

Similarly, if you have a purely LTR or a purely RTL run of characters then 
logical and visual selection are identical to the user.
Regards,

  - yba

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:09:50 +0200
> From: Shachar Shemesh <shachar@...>
> To: Jonathan Ben Avraham <yba@...>
> Cc: linux-il <linux-il@...>, Brian C. Beck <brian.beck@...>,
>     Alan Yaniger <alan@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>> 
> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block of 
> visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the 
> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may 
> vary.
>
> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to me. 
> I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection containing 
> the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end of the English 
> part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the beginnings of the 
> sentences combined.
>
> Shachar
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Omer Zak | 7 Oct 09:23

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

>From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and me use the same
definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from column X to
column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever text which
happens to be displayed between those columns (the text could have been
from different spans of the corresponding original text - "logical
text").

Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or whether you
really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a selected text
segment and display it"?

                                   --- Omer

On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> > Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
> >
> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block 
> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the 
> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may 
> vary.
> 
> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to 
> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection 
> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end 
> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the 
> beginnings of the sentences combined.

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 09:36

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
>> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and me use the same
> definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from column X to
> column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever text which
> happens to be displayed between those columns (the text could have been
> from different spans of the corresponding original text - "logical
> text").

We agree on the meaning of visual selection.

>
> Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or whether you
> really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a selected text
> segment and display it"?

No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a text, do a logical 
selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of some subset and 
then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi ordering. Selected 
text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the unselected 
text.

  - yba

>
>                                   --- Omer
>
>
> On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>>>
>> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block
>> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the
>> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may
>> vary.
>>
>> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to
>> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection
>> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end
>> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the
>> beginnings of the sentences combined.
>
>

--

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Omer Zak | 7 Oct 10:04

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hello Jonathan,

I think I begin to understand what you are trying to accomplish.  It is
indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there are
several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL,
strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders.

There are several possibilities for improving the selection GUI
look&feel in this case:

1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by itself for
blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).

2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a paragraph)
and then manually turn it back on.

3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a piece of paper
when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece of cloth
while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs before and 5
glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we suppress
ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with background
having different color.
(The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, and be
user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background color to
be used in this case.)

4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around the mouse
without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions using the
pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.

It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in this, as
Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when the order
of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.  Hebrew and Latin,
in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse direction.

                                    --- Omer

On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
> 
> > Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
> > From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> > To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> > Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> > 
> >> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and me use the same
> > definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from column X to
> > column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever text which
> > happens to be displayed between those columns (the text could have been
> > from different spans of the corresponding original text - "logical
> > text").
> 
> We agree on the meaning of visual selection.
> 
> >
> > Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or whether you
> > really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a selected text
> > segment and display it"?
> 
> No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a text, do a logical 
> selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of some subset and 
> then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi ordering. Selected 
> text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the unselected 
> text.
> 
>   - yba
> 
> 
> >
> >                                   --- Omer
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> >> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> >>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
> >>>
> >> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block
> >> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the
> >> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may
> >> vary.
> >>
> >> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to
> >> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection
> >> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end
> >> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the
> >> beginnings of the sentences combined.
--

-- 
42 is the answer to everything.  Food is the answer to everything except
obesity.
My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 10:45

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:04:58 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Hello Jonathan,
>
> I think I begin to understand what you are trying to accomplish.  It is
> indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there are
> several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL,
> strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders.
>
> There are several possibilities for improving the selection GUI
> look&feel in this case:
>
> 1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by itself for
> blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).
>
> 2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a paragraph)
> and then manually turn it back on.

This sounds best to me, possibly with (1) added by double/tripple-clicking 
or similar signal.

> 3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a piece of paper
> when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece of cloth
> while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs before and 5
> glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we suppress
> ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with background
> having different color.
> (The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, and be
> user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background color to
> be used in this case.)

We would need to find a way to present this mechanism to blind or just 
color blind users. Looks complicated to me.

> 4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around the mouse
> without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions using the
> pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.

Sounds workable, but less simple that just turning off bidi re-ordering 
for the current paragraph. Pop-up helper windows don't really fit in with 
the Swing/JavaFX paradigm. It would work in OOo.

> It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in this, as
> Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when the order
> of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.  Hebrew and Latin,
> in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse direction.

Excellent point. For Arabic displayed in an LTR context we would have to 
use the stand-alone glyphs for each character as the joining of the glyphs 
("rabt") is inherently RTL.
Regards,

  - yba

>                                    --- Omer
>
>
>
> On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>> On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
>>
>>> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
>>> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
>>> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
>>> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
>>>
>>>> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and me use the same
>>> definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from column X to
>>> column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever text which
>>> happens to be displayed between those columns (the text could have been
>>> from different spans of the corresponding original text - "logical
>>> text").
>>
>> We agree on the meaning of visual selection.
>>
>>>
>>> Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or whether you
>>> really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a selected text
>>> segment and display it"?
>>
>> No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a text, do a logical
>> selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of some subset and
>> then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi ordering. Selected
>> text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the unselected
>> text.
>>
>>   - yba
>>
>>
>>>
>>>                                   --- Omer
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>>>> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>>>>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>>>>>
>>>> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block
>>>> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the
>>>> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may
>>>> vary.
>>>>
>>>> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to
>>>> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection
>>>> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end
>>>> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the
>>>> beginnings of the sentences combined.
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Matitiahu Allouche | 7 Oct 14:29

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Omer Zak wrote:

<quote>
There are several possibilities for improving the selection GUI
look&feel in this case:

1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by itself for
blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).

2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a paragraph)
and then manually turn it back on.

3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a piece of paper
when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece of cloth
while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs before and 5
glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we suppress
ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with background
having different color.
(The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, and be
user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background color to
be used in this case.)

4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around the mouse
without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions using the
pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.

It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in this, as
Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when the order
of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.
</quote>

Sorry to differ, but I cannot agree with Omer's proposals.  Since we are 
discussing usability, our target audience is not one of professionals with 
Bidi awareness, but average joes who try to edit documents with the least 
possible fuss.  Showing unordered Bidi text to such people cannot be 
considered as progress or clarification, IMHO.  The moving window (item 3 
above) is an interesting idea, but pushes the bafflement to high marks.

I have some contacts with Arabic experts, and I can tell you that for 
their market, showing unshaped (improperly connected) letters, even in 
proper ordering, is considered unacceptable.  All the more with LTR 
ordering.

Shalom (Regards),  Mati
           Bidi Architect
           Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
           IBM Israel
           Phone: +972 2 5888802    Fax: +972 2 5870333    Mobile: +972 52 
2554160

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 7 Oct 15:33

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hi Mati,
I think that Omer's proposal is interesting and that we can't prejudge the 
average joe's reaction to it. There are a lot of features that are harder 
than this one to understand and to use in OOo. I think that it's worth 
including in a special or bonus release to see how it will go over.
Regards,

  - yba

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Matitiahu Allouche wrote:

> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 14:29:20 +0200
> From: Matitiahu Allouche <matial@...>
> To: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> Cc: linux-il <linux-il@...>, linux-il-bounce@...
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> Omer Zak wrote:
>
> <quote>
> There are several possibilities for improving the selection GUI
> look&feel in this case:
>
> 1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by itself for
> blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).
>
> 2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a paragraph)
> and then manually turn it back on.
>
> 3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a piece of paper
> when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece of cloth
> while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs before and 5
> glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we suppress
> ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with background
> having different color.
> (The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, and be
> user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background color to
> be used in this case.)
>
> 4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around the mouse
> without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions using the
> pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.
>
> It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in this, as
> Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when the order
> of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.
> </quote>
>
> Sorry to differ, but I cannot agree with Omer's proposals.  Since we are
> discussing usability, our target audience is not one of professionals with
> Bidi awareness, but average joes who try to edit documents with the least
> possible fuss.  Showing unordered Bidi text to such people cannot be
> considered as progress or clarification, IMHO.  The moving window (item 3
> above) is an interesting idea, but pushes the bafflement to high marks.
>
> I have some contacts with Arabic experts, and I can tell you that for
> their market, showing unshaped (improperly connected) letters, even in
> proper ordering, is considered unacceptable.  All the more with LTR
> ordering.
>
>
> Shalom (Regards),  Mati
>           Bidi Architect
>           Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
>           IBM Israel
>           Phone: +972 2 5888802    Fax: +972 2 5870333    Mobile: +972 52
> 2554160
>
> =================================================================
> To unsubscribe, send mail to linux-il-request@... with
> the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
> echo unsubscribe | mail linux-il-request@...
>
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Omer Zak | 7 Oct 22:44

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 14:29 +0200, Matitiahu Allouche wrote:
> I have some contacts with Arabic experts, and I can tell you that for 
> their market, showing unshaped (improperly connected) letters, even in 
> proper ordering, is considered unacceptable.  All the more with LTR 
> ordering.

Then a possible solution is to force all relevant text to RTL ordering
when there are more than 1-2 Arabic glyphs in the selection.  Thus, the
Arabs will be allowed to rule over the world in this case.
--

-- 
Jara Cimrman.  A name to remember.
My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 8 Oct 09:49

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Hi Omer,
Using your original suggestion, the Arabic text could be displayed with 
correct joining when displayed in input (logical) order from 
right-to-left. This should work well for predominantly Arabic paragraphs 
with some embedded LTR text. The problem would be when diplaying an LTR 
language paragraph with some embedded Arabic text - it would be backwards 
of course, and the display system shaping algorithm that does the "rabt" 
could make the text look rather strange. But since this display is 
temporary, for the purposes of text selection, that might not be so bad.
Regards,

  - yba

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:44:44 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 14:29 +0200, Matitiahu Allouche wrote:
>> I have some contacts with Arabic experts, and I can tell you that for
>> their market, showing unshaped (improperly connected) letters, even in
>> proper ordering, is considered unacceptable.  All the more with LTR
>> ordering.
>
> Then a possible solution is to force all relevant text to RTL ordering
> when there are more than 1-2 Arabic glyphs in the selection.  Thus, the
> Arabs will be allowed to rule over the world in this case.
>

--

-- 
  EE 77 7F 30 4A 64 2E C5  83 5F E7 49 A6 82 29 BA    ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
      - yba@... - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -

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Dov Grobgeld | 26 Oct 08:20

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Sorry to join the discussion so late, but I have an idea that I believe would make both selection and caret position easier for the user in a BiDi context. The idea is to visually display the points of direction discontinuity. I like to call these a source when the two directions diverge, and a sink when the two direction converges.

Heres an example:

Logical: abcABCabc
Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|CBA<||>abc

where |><| is a glyph indicating a sink point and a <||> is a glyph indicating a source point. If a source and a sink meet they cancel out. The user may now easily place the caret at the left or the right side of the source and the sink points, which today is very difficult to do.

I hope to create a concept implementation one day.

I'd be happy to hear comments about this idea.

Regards,
Dov

2008/10/7 Omer Zak <w1-W6cp89mEpD1mR6Xm/wNWPw@public.gmane.org>

Hello Jonathan,

I think I begin to understand what you are trying to accomplish. It is
indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there are
several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL,
strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders.

There are several possibilities for improving the selection GUI
look&feel in this case:

1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by itself for
blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).

2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a paragraph)
and then manually turn it back on.

3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a piece of paper
when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece of cloth
while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs before and 5
glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we suppress
ordering of differing glyphs). Have them displayed with background
having different color.
(The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests, and be
user-configurable through a setup menu. So is the background color to
be used in this case.)

4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around the mouse
without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions using the
pop-up display. The regular text display would be unchanged.

It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in this, as
Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when the order
of glyphs is reversed without additional processing. Hebrew and Latin,
in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse direction.

--- Omer

On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
>
> > Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
> > From: Omer Zak <w1-W6cp89mEpD1mR6Xm/wNWPw@public.gmane.org>
> > To: linux-il <linux-il-NSemkxREmS1YZAO8hgG6+w@public.gmane.org>
> > Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> >
> >> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and me use the same
> > definition of "visual selection". You drag the mouse from column X to
> > column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever text which
> > happens to be displayed between those columns (the text could have been
> > from different spans of the corresponding original text - "logical
> > text").
>
> We agree on the meaning of visual selection.
>
> >
> > Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or whether you
> > really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a selected text
> > segment and display it"?
>
> No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a text, do a logical
> selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of some subset and
> then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi ordering. Selected
> text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the unselected
> text.
>
> - yba
>
>
> >
> > --- Omer
> >
> >
> > On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> >> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
> >>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
> >>>
> >> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a continuous block
> >> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually ordered then the
> >> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that definitions may
> >> vary.
> >>
> >> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all that useful to
> >> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a selection
> >> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence followed by the end
> >> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same goes for the
> >> beginnings of the sentences combined.
--

42 is the answer to everything. Food is the answer to everything except
obesity.

My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/

My opinions, as expressed in this E-mail message, are mine alone.
They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
I may be affiliated in any way.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS: at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

=================================================================

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Omer Zak | 26 Oct 08:31

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

I think that Dov's idea is good one, and I'd be happy to see an
implementation of his idea.

Questions, whose answers require experimentation and tweaking:

1. Do we display sources and sinks over all the document or only at the
ends of the span, in which the cursor is now?

2. Do we display them all the time (toggled by the user in the same way
spaces are explicitly displayed in some wordprocessors, by displaying
small dots instead of spaces), or only when the user tries to select
text (i.e. automatically)?  And if automatically, how do we deal with
text displacement when sources and sinks show up/disappear?

3. Is this enough to make it easy to select text, or do we need also to
temporarily display text in logical-only ordering (see previous
discussion below)?

--- Omer

On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 09:20 +0200, Dov Grobgeld wrote:
> Sorry to join the discussion so late, but I have an idea  that I
> believe would make both selection and caret position easier for the
> user in a BiDi context. The idea is to visually display the points of
> direction discontinuity. I like to call these a source when the two
> directions diverge, and a sink when the two direction converges. 
> 
> Heres an example:
> 
> Logical:  abcABCabc
> Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|CBA<||>abc
> 
> where |><| is a glyph indicating a sink point and a <||> is a glyph
> indicating a source point. If a source and a sink meet they cancel
> out. The user may now easily place the caret at the left or the right
> side of the source and the sink points, which today is very difficult
> to do.
> 
> I hope to create a concept implementation one day.
> 
> I'd be happy to hear comments about this idea.
> 
> Regards,
> Dov
> 
> 2008/10/7 Omer Zak <w1@...>
>         Hello Jonathan,
>         
>         I think I begin to understand what you are trying to
>         accomplish.  It is
>         indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there
>         are
>         several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL,
>         strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders.
>         
>         There are several possibilities for improving the selection
>         GUI
>         look&feel in this case:
>         
>         1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by
>         itself for
>         blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).
>         
>         2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a
>         paragraph)
>         and then manually turn it back on.
>         
>         3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a
>         piece of paper
>         when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece
>         of cloth
>         while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs
>         before and 5
>         glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we
>         suppress
>         ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with
>         background
>         having different color.
>         (The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests,
>         and be
>         user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background
>         color to
>         be used in this case.)
>         
>         4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around
>         the mouse
>         without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions
>         using the
>         pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.
>         
>         It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in
>         this, as
>         Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when
>         the order
>         of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.  Hebrew
>         and Latin,
>         in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse
>         direction.
>         
>                                            --- Omer
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>         > On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
>         >
>         > > Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
>         > > From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
>         > > To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
>         > > Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
>         > >
>         > >> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and
>         me use the same
>         > > definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from
>         column X to
>         > > column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever
>         text which
>         > > happens to be displayed between those columns (the text
>         could have been
>         > > from different spans of the corresponding original text -
>         "logical
>         > > text").
>         >
>         > We agree on the meaning of visual selection.
>         >
>         > >
>         > > Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or
>         whether you
>         > > really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a
>         selected text
>         > > segment and display it"?
>         >
>         > No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a
>         text, do a logical
>         > selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of
>         some subset and
>         > then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi
>         ordering. Selected
>         > text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the
>         unselected
>         > text.
>         >
>         >   - yba
>         >
>         >
>         > >
>         > >                                   --- Omer
>         > >
>         > >
>         > > On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>         > >> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>         > >>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>         > >>>
>         > >> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a
>         continuous block
>         > >> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually
>         ordered then the
>         > >> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that
>         definitions may
>         > >> vary.
>         > >>
>         > >> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all
>         that useful to
>         > >> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a
>         selection
>         > >> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence
>         followed by the end
>         > >> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same
>         goes for the
>         > >> beginnings of the sentences combined.

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Jonathan Ben Avraham | 26 Oct 10:00

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection

Dear friends,
Here is a summary of the discussion from my viewpoint.

1. Visual selection in a bidi context is not useful per se.

2. It would be useful to have a key-stroke sequence and the possibility of 
toggling-icons in the margin of the text like <->, <<- and ->> that 
control the display of the text between bidi, logical RTL and logical LTR. 
This would allow the user to toggle the text from bidi display to
logical display for the purpose of doing a visual text selection.

3. It would be useful to have a caret with two flags, possibly one at the 
top and one at the bottom. The top flag would show the display direction 
as it does now, and the bottom flag would display the base direction. I 
receive many questions from OOo users who see the period at the end of a 
Hebrew sentence jump to the beginning of the sentence. I have to tell the 
users to pay attention to the base direction indicator that OOo provides. 
In contexts like Java-based applications where there is no external base 
direction indicator, the extra flag on the cursor would help.

Best regards,

  - yba

On Sun, 26 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:

> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:31:36 +0200
> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
> 
> I think that Dov's idea is good one, and I'd be happy to see an
> implementation of his idea.
>
> Questions, whose answers require experimentation and tweaking:
>
> 1. Do we display sources and sinks over all the document or only at the
> ends of the span, in which the cursor is now?
>
> 2. Do we display them all the time (toggled by the user in the same way
> spaces are explicitly displayed in some wordprocessors, by displaying
> small dots instead of spaces), or only when the user tries to select
> text (i.e. automatically)?  And if automatically, how do we deal with
> text displacement when sources and sinks show up/disappear?
>
> 3. Is this enough to make it easy to select text, or do we need also to
> temporarily display text in logical-only ordering (see previous
> discussion below)?
>
> --- Omer
>
> On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 09:20 +0200, Dov Grobgeld wrote:
>> Sorry to join the discussion so late, but I have an idea  that I
>> believe would make both selection and caret position easier for the
>> user in a BiDi context. The idea is to visually display the points of
>> direction discontinuity. I like to call these a source when the two
>> directions diverge, and a sink when the two direction converges.
>>
>> Heres an example:
>>
>> Logical:  abcABCabc
>> Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|CBA<||>abc
>>
>> where |><| is a glyph indicating a sink point and a <||> is a glyph
>> indicating a source point. If a source and a sink meet they cancel
>> out. The user may now easily place the caret at the left or the right
>> side of the source and the sink points, which today is very difficult
>> to do.
>>
>> I hope to create a concept implementation one day.
>>
>> I'd be happy to hear comments about this idea.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Dov
>>
>> 2008/10/7 Omer Zak <w1@...>
>>         Hello Jonathan,
>>
>>         I think I begin to understand what you are trying to
>>         accomplish.  It is
>>         indeed difficult to precisely select a text segment when there
>>         are
>>         several spans of different directionality properties (LTR/RTL,
>>         strong/weak, overrides, etc.) at its borders.
>>
>>         There are several possibilities for improving the selection
>>         GUI
>>         look&feel in this case:
>>
>>         1. Turn off BiDi ordering for the entire file (useful by
>>         itself for
>>         blind computer users; not directly related to our problem).
>>
>>         2. Manually turn off BiDi ordering for a text segment (say, a
>>         paragraph)
>>         and then manually turn it back on.
>>
>>         3. Use the metaphor of using one hand to straighten out a
>>         piece of paper
>>         when writing using the second hand (or straightening a piece
>>         of cloth
>>         while doing needlework): turn off BiDi ordering 5 glyphs
>>         before and 5
>>         glyphs after the mouse position (as the mouse moves, we
>>         suppress
>>         ordering of differing glyphs).  Have them displayed with
>>         background
>>         having different color.
>>         (The exact numbers are to be determined by usability tests,
>>         and be
>>         user-configurable through a setup menu.  So is the background
>>         color to
>>         be used in this case.)
>>
>>         4. Have a small pop-up window, which displays the text around
>>         the mouse
>>         without BiDi ordering and let the user guide his mouse actions
>>         using the
>>         pop-up display.  The regular text display would be unchanged.
>>
>>         It would be nice to get Arabic speakers to be involved in
>>         this, as
>>         Arabic presents a special problem - probably unreadable when
>>         the order
>>         of glyphs is reversed without additional processing.  Hebrew
>>         and Latin,
>>         in contrast, are still somewhat readable even in reverse
>>         direction.
>>
>>                                            --- Omer
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:36 +0200, Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>>        > On Tue, 7 Oct 2008, Omer Zak wrote:
>>        >
>>        >> Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:23:32 +0200
>>        >> From: Omer Zak <w1@...>
>>        >> To: linux-il <linux-il@...>
>>        >> Subject: Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection
>>        >>
>>        >>> From the discussion below, I understand that Shachar and
>>         me use the same
>>        >> definition of "visual selection".  You drag the mouse from
>>         column X to
>>        >> column Y in the same row of the display, and get whatever
>>         text which
>>        >> happens to be displayed between those columns (the text
>>         could have been
>>        >> from different spans of the corresponding original text -
>>         "logical
>>        >> text").
>>        >
>>        > We agree on the meaning of visual selection.
>>        >
>>        >>
>>        >> Jonathan, can you clarify if you mean the same thing, or
>>         whether you
>>        >> really meant "temporarily turn off BiDi ordering for a
>>         selected text
>>        >> segment and display it"?
>>        >
>>        > No, we mean temporaroly turn off bidi re-ordering for a
>>         text, do a logical
>>        > selection (which is now the same as visual selection) of
>>         some subset and
>>        > then revert the display of the whole text back to bidi
>>         ordering. Selected
>>        > text wold be always be displayed in the same ordering as the
>>         unselected
>>        > text.
>>        >
>>        >   - yba
>>        >
>>        >
>>        >>
>>        >>                                   --- Omer
>>        >>
>>        >>
>>        >> On Tue, 2008-10-07 at 09:09 +0200, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>>        >>> Jonathan Ben Avraham wrote:
>>        >>>> Right, that's what the qualifier "in effect" means.
>>        >>>>
>>        >>> Visual selection, to me, means "selecting text from a
>>         continuous block
>>        >>> of visually ordered text". If the text is not visually
>>         ordered then the
>>        >>> selection cannot be considered "visual". I conceded that
>>         definitions may
>>        >>> vary.
>>        >>>
>>        >>> I agree with Omer that visual selection does not seem all
>>         that useful to
>>        >>> me. I am at a loss to think of what use to the end user a
>>         selection
>>        >>> containing the end of the Hebrew part of a sentence
>>         followed by the end
>>        >>> of the English part of the sentence is going to be. Same
>>         goes for the
>>        >>> beginnings of the sentences combined.
>
>

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Matitiahu Allouche | 27 Oct 12:59

Re: [YBA] Logical VS Visual Text Selection


Dov Grobgeld submitted the following example (with visualization of source 
and sink points):

Logical:  abcABCabc
Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|CBA<||>abc

Just to show how niggling I am, let me modify the example as follows:

Logical:  abcDEFxyz
Visual with sources and sinks displayed: abc|><|FED<||>xyz

Reasoning: there are enough letters in the alphabet, so that we don't have 
to reuse any, which creates potential for confusion.

Now that the stage is set, let's address the proposal itself.  It is 
interesting and may help users who could not guess otherwise where the 
"points of direction discontinuity" (which I like to call "boundaries") 
are located.  But the presence of the source/sinks markers does not really 
make easier the gymnastics of locating the caret on the desired side of 
the boundary.
Let's assume the current state of things, where the display is: abcFEDxyz

If a user wants to extend the "abc" run, all he/she has to do is to click 
on the right part of 'c', and the caret will be logically after 'c'.  If 
the user wants to extend the "FED" run, he/she should click on the left 
part of 'F', and the caret will be logically after 'F'.  Similar 
operations apply to the boundary between 'D' and 'x'.  Unless the font is 
quite small, or the user has motor difficulties (which is not to be 
neglected), the source/sink markers are not needed, IMHO, and there is no 
justification for the added co