Re: arrow keys vs. C-f/b/n/p

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden>,  David Kastrup <address@hidden>,  
> address@hidden
> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:47:41 -0400
> 
> > (I am still dubious about decoupling the arrow keys and C-f/C-b
> > keybindings.  Maybe we should provide a separate set of keybindings
> > instead.)
> 
> It's actually not really decoupled.
> It just switches between "C-f = right and C-b = left" and
> "C-f = left and C-b = right" based on the paragraph's direction.
> Which seems eminently meaningful since the associating between
> "forward" and "right" is just based on our usual convention of
> writing L2R.

Exactly.

> Now addmitedly, the particular place where the choice between the two
> forms of coupling is made is up for discussion: it could be based on the
> direction of text underneath point (basically, make the arrow move
> visually rather than logically)

There's already infrastructure in the display engine to support such a
feature.  Every glyph we produce for display is marked with its
bidirectional level.  We can base all kinds of feature on that in the
future if we decide.

> I don't have a clear preference, but I think that the current choice
> is pretty good compromise between "no need for customization,
> auto-adjusts to mixes of L2R and R2L buffers" and "still move in
> logical rather than visual order".

That's also my hope.  And until and unless we hear otherwise from
users of bidirectional scripts, I don't recommend considering any
changes in that.