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

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Chong, Stefan: how about having a (customizable) list of buffer names
>> which should by default have left-to-right paragraph direction?

Bad idea.  Better tell people to

  (add-hook 'foo-mode-hook
            (lambda ()
              (set (make-local-variable 'bidi-paragraph-direction)
                   'left-to-right)))

Using buffer names is really ugly (I know we use them for
display-buffer-alist, but I'm not too thrilled about it).

> for a mode to set the variable `paragraph-start' for Emacs to DTRT?  A
> quick glance at the Mew source shows that it does set `paragraph-start',
> though I don't know if every line is treated like a paragraph.

In non-editing modes, paragraph-start is only set to make M-} and M-{ do
something useful, and advancing by a single line is not something very
useful, so I wouldn't bet on it.

We could have a new bidi-paragraph-start setting, but in the OP's case
(and all similar cases, of which there are many) the right fix is to
disable auto-detection of paragraph direction and force it to
left-to-right.  And I suspect this will account for more than 90% of the
cases where one would be tempted to change bidi-paragraph-start.
So let's first see how far we can go with bidi-paragraph-direction.


        Stefan