Re: bidi-display-reordering is now non-nil by default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden>
> Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:33:49 +0200
> 
> Would it possibly, perhaps, make sense to switch off the bidi paragraph
> detection stuff if (get major-mode 'mode-class) eq 'special?

What do you mean by "switch off"? do you mean force paragraphs to be
always left-to-right?

> These modes aren't meant for editing (generally), so perhaps that
> might solve some problems.

It should be possible, but:

 . To say something intelligent about this, I'd need someone "in the
   know" to explain what `special-mode' really means.  I actually
   thought about this a day or two ago, but was unable to make up my
   mind due to lack of detailed documentation.  The ELisp manual says
   this about these modes:

    * If this mode is appropriate only for specially-prepared text, then
      the major mode command symbol should have a property named
      `mode-class' with value `special', put on as follows:

           (put 'funny-mode 'mode-class 'special)

      This tells Emacs that new buffers created while the current buffer
      is in Funny mode should not inherit Funny mode, in case the
      default value of `major-mode' is `nil'.  Modes such as Dired,
      Rmail, and Buffer List use this feature.

   Huh?  "New buffers created while the current buffer is in Funny
   mode"?  "Should not inherit Funny mode"?  "In case the default
   value is non-nil"?  I cannot make heads or tails out of this
   description, and saying that a few modes use this feature really
   doesn't help to understand it.

 . One of the suggestions on the table is that
   bidi-paragraph-direction be set to left-to-right by default, and
   then only major modes (or other features) that need to reset it to
   nil will do that.  If the decision is to go this way, we won't need
   to treat `special' modes "specially" ;-)

Btw, did anyone fix Gnus summary, to display the line count correctly
when the Subject is using an R2L script?  It was reported a day or two
ago here, and I said that the LRM character (possibly invisible)
should be inserted right after the subject to fix that.