On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Michael (michka) Kaplan wrote:
> If you use Access 2000 to enter Hebrew data on a non-Hebrew machine, you get
> the ability to input data without the Bidi algorithm being applied till you
> commit the line.
>
> This is almost universally hated by anyone who experiences it.
>
> Consistency may not seem like a good thing, but some inconsistencies will
> make it worse.
I believe that a more complex algorithm than bidi is needed for bidi data
entry. I'm not sure know how such a thing may be implemented, but I have
some ideas. I think I had explained them a bit here previously, but to be
short, a usable bidi data entry algorithm should become more visual, with
cursor moving as it is moving over visual text, and the character that has
just got pressed usually getting inserted at the cursor position. Also, it
should have some state.
For example, when a user is writing RTL text, presses a space, starts
typing digits, and then another space, almost everyone agress that the
cursor should jump to the right of the numbers, putting the space there.
Now consider that she goes to other lines, comes back, and finds that she
will need another space between the starting text and the number. She
moves the cursor in the place she wants to enter the text, presses the
space, and magically it appears somewhere else, after the number.
You should have got the point.
--roozbeh
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:20 EDT