bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Per Starbäck]

Using a locale with right-to-left writing, for example

  LANG=ar_EG.utf8 src/emacs-24.0.94.1 -Q

I get the menu-bar and the tool-bar in the reverse direction, that is
with the Help menu on the left and the File menu on the right, for
example.
This is a GTK thing. At least with  ./configure --with-x-toolkit=motif
 it's not like this.

If emacs was localized with non-English menus this would be good, but
since these things are in English anyway I think it only looks
strange.
(Also the mirroring affects the meanings of the values left and right
for tool-bar-position.)

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

starback@stp.lingfil.uu.se (Per Starbäck) writes:

> Using a locale with right-to-left writing, for example
>
>   LANG=ar_EG.utf8 src/emacs-24.0.94.1 -Q
>
> I get the menu-bar and the tool-bar in the reverse direction, that is
> with the Help menu on the left and the File menu on the right, for
> example.
> This is a GTK thing. At least with  ./configure --with-x-toolkit=motif
>  it's not like this.
>
> If emacs was localized with non-English menus this would be good, but
> since these things are in English anyway I think it only looks
> strange.
> (Also the mirroring affects the meanings of the values left and right
> for tool-bar-position.)

(I'm going through old Emacs bug reports that unfortunately got no
response at the time.)

I agree that it looks a bit odd -- but what do right-to-left users
expect in these instances?  To have the "most important" menu to the
right or to the left?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 19:01:25 +0200
> Cc: 11016@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> starback@stp.lingfil.uu.se (Per Starbäck) writes:
> 
> > Using a locale with right-to-left writing, for example
> >
> >   LANG=ar_EG.utf8 src/emacs-24.0.94.1 -Q
> >
> > I get the menu-bar and the tool-bar in the reverse direction, that is
> > with the Help menu on the left and the File menu on the right, for
> > example.
> > This is a GTK thing. At least with  ./configure --with-x-toolkit=motif
> >  it's not like this.

Yes, because Emacs is smarter.  Various GUI toolkits foolishly reverse
the UI unconditionally based on the locale; Emacs does not.  So when
the menu bar and the tool bar are drawn by Emacs, you get the usual
left-to-right UI.

> I agree that it looks a bit odd -- but what do right-to-left users
> expect in these instances?  To have the "most important" menu to the
> right or to the left?

Some prefer one, others prefer the other.  It should be a separate
user option, because there's no one-fits-all solution, and basing the
solution on the locale is definitely wrong (one can work in a R2L
locale without speaking any R2L language).

And, as the OP correctly points out, it makes no sense to provide a
right-to-left UI when the menus and the labels on the tool-bar buttons
cannot be localized, let alone "speak" the R2L language.  Which is the
single most important reason I didn't code such an option back when I
worked on bidi Emacs.  You can still see comments to that effect in
xdisp.c.

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[martin rudalics]

 > Some prefer one, others prefer the other.  It should be a separate
 > user option, because there's no one-fits-all solution, and basing the
 > solution on the locale is definitely wrong (one can work in a R2L
 > locale without speaking any R2L language).

We probably should use gtk_menu_bar_set_child_pack_direction right
after the gtk_menu_bar_new call in create_menus according to that user
option.  Its values would probably be 'left-to-right', 'right-to-left'
and nil - to leave the decision to the locale.

martin

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: 11016@debbugs.gnu.org, starback@stp.lingfil.uu.se
> From: martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at>
> Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2019 20:10:20 +0200
> 
>  > Some prefer one, others prefer the other.  It should be a separate
>  > user option, because there's no one-fits-all solution, and basing the
>  > solution on the locale is definitely wrong (one can work in a R2L
>  > locale without speaking any R2L language).
> 
> We probably should use gtk_menu_bar_set_child_pack_direction right
> after the gtk_menu_bar_new call in create_menus according to that user
> option.  Its values would probably be 'left-to-right', 'right-to-left'
> and nil - to leave the decision to the locale.

Once again, it makes no sense to have the UI direction right-to-left
when the labels are all in English.  If anything, it looks UUGLEEE!

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[martin rudalics]

 > Once again, it makes no sense to have the UI direction right-to-left
 > when the labels are all in English.  If anything, it looks UUGLEEE!

Obviously, such an option would be needed to allow users to override
the default behavior in their locale.  And to keep the default
behavior for those who are used to it.  But I can't get it to work
here anyway - the correspoding call is just ignored.

martin

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: larsi@gnus.org, 11016@debbugs.gnu.org, starback@stp.lingfil.uu.se
> From: martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at>
> Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 10:41:31 +0200
> 
>  > Once again, it makes no sense to have the UI direction right-to-left
>  > when the labels are all in English.  If anything, it looks UUGLEEE!
> 
> Obviously, such an option would be needed to allow users to override
> the default behavior in their locale.

If you are talking about GTK, then the corresponding option should be
a GTK setting, not an Emacs setting.  Right?

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[martin rudalics]

 > If you are talking about GTK, then the corresponding option should be
 > a GTK setting, not an Emacs setting.  Right?

All I tried was to hardcode a R2L menubar by calling
gtk_menu_bar_set_child_pack_direction with GTK_PACK_DIRECTION_RTL.
But I got no effect.  Maybe someone with some sort of a R2L locale
could try?

martin

bug#11016: 24.0.94; Right-to-left GUI

[Per Starbäck]

> Once again, it makes no sense to have the UI direction right-to-left
> when the labels are all in English.  If anything, it looks UUGLEEE!

I generally don't like half-done localization. I've reported it as a bug
a long time ago that dired buffers use current locale when listing files
in dired buffers so they show non-English dates in an environment
otherwise in English, but that was then seen as a feature.