Re: What do you miss in ConTeXt?

[Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny@eglug.org>]

On Tue, Feb 09, 2010 at 06:56:05PM +0100, Hans Hagen wrote:
> On 9-2-2010 18:50, Khaled Hosny wrote:
> >On Mon, Feb 08, 2010 at 12:25:58PM +0100, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >>ConTeXt has many features but sometimes there is something missing,
> >>what feature or package do you miss which is already available in
> >>another TeX system or unavailable in any TeX system?
> >
> >An implementation of Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm[1] and automatic,
> >script based font switching, Unicode Script Property[2]. Editing mixed
> >RTL and LTR text is mess already, adding to the mix LTR TeX commands for
> >every directionally switch makes it a nightmare. I ended up doing my
> >first pass without any directional commands at all then using some
> >regular expressions to post process the text, but this is no fun and
> >needs manual review not to mention that post editing that text still a
> >nightmare.
> >
> >I've attempted to write the BiDi implementation several times myself, by
> >never managed to actually allocate enough time for it. ConTeXt already
> >has a BiDi implantation (typo-mir.{lua,mkiv}), but I gave up using it
> >because it is buggy and can be hardly used for any thing.
> >
> >[1] http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr9/
> >[2] http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr24/
> 
> i cannot fix things unless i know what is broken -) also, i need to
> cater for mixed bidi input and txt/pardir usage which is non trivial

IIRC, I reported all of that months ago but I usually get no answer.

> anyway, luatex > 0.60 will have an improved tagging of nodes so that
> might help

Right, having a direction property for each node (assuming this what the
tagging feature you mean) would help even in OpenType layout, like
supporting 'rtla' and 'rtlm' (RTL alternates and mirrors) which need to
be enabled conditionally based on glyph direction.

Regards,
 Khaled


-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer
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