Re: arrow keys vs. C-f/b/n/p

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Copyright: Copyright 2009 James Cloos
> OpenPGP-Fingerprint: E9E9 F828 61A4 6EA9 0F2B  63E7 997A 9F17 ED7D AEA6
> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:29:31 -0400
> 
> In gedit C-f and C-b move forward and backward logically, whereas LEFT
> and RIGHT move left and right visually.

Please be more specific, after reading my message where I presented
the definitions relevant to this thread.  Emacs currently implements
only the logical-mode motion, both with C-f/C-b and with arrow keys.

> In seamonkey, in a web-page's text input box, both the arrow keys and
> the C-b and C-f keys move visually.

A useless mode, if you ask me.  It might be good enough for a Web
browser, but it's useless in a text editor.  That is because, with
visual-mode only, you have no good way of marking the region (which
must always be marked in logical buffer order).  Marking region and
features based on the region are so basic in Emacs that without
logical-order motion keys Emacs will be useless.

> In gvim, both the h and l keys and the arrow keys move visually.

Please don't consider Vim a bidi-aware application.  All Vim does is
simple reversal of text on the screen.  It has no idea what to reverse
and what not, and neither does it support UAX#9.  It's small wonder it
can only support visual-order movement.

> In Openoffice.org, the arrow keys move logically.

Again, please be more specific: what does the left arrow key do in a
R2L paragraph?  Does it go backwards in the text, eventually ending up
at the first text character, or does it go forward?