Wikimedia Bugzilla is closed!

This is a meta-bug to track dependencies regarding a general BiDi request for
special pages: display pages according to LTR / RTL property of selected user
interface not according to LTR / RTL property of the content language

Dear friends,

This is not a theoretical request but a requeast oriented on reality and what is
possible with actual MediaWiki and available knowledge.

I suppose that at the beginning the LTR / RTL models / worlds where quite simple.

a) on one hand LTR wiki's with
a1) LTR MediaWiki messages
a2) LTR titles
a3) LTR user names
a4) LTR categories
a5) additional LTR information as summaries and comments
a6) all information should be written in LTR languages

b) on the other hand RTL wiki's with
a1) RTL MediaWiki messages
a2) RTL titles
a3) RTL user names
a4) RTL categories
a5) additional RTL information as summaries and comments
a6) all information should be written in RTL languages

It showed up early that this would not be reality:
- User names remaind same ( LTR / RTL ) type accross projects
- additional information (as notes posted in summeries) was inserted LTR because
this was easier, caused because the RTL langauge was not known and / or missing
keyboard / skills

To understand the problem please do the following:
- login at [[he:]] (or [[ar:]], [[fa:]], [[ur:]], [[yi:]])
- set English as you interface language in *special:Preferences*
- go to *special:Categories* and find the first categories where links to
categories overlap with other text due to the browsers automatic BiDi (display)
mechanism / rendering

Please note that already today information / content at Wiktionaries includes an
significant amount of BiDi affected objects: titles, categories, users etc.


*Enhancement request:*

It should be evaluated what would bring the most benefit, what "items" /
"objects" should be displayed which way LTR / RTL de pending on content language
/ selected user interface.

1) I propose that "wiki information" should be displayed according to "content
language".

2) I propose that MediaWiki messages should be displayed according to the "user
interface"

3) Regarding the LTR / RTL properties of "the main text area" it should be no
doubt that this could *and* should be as well according to the "user interface".

4) Regarding the LTR / RTL properties of "the remaining skin areas" it is
probably also most suitable to use the properties from the "user interface".

All this can be achieved using "embeding techniques" as presented already at bug
4040 ug 4040: general solution to handle overlaping links, reordering of fields
on pages caused due to BiDi environments.

The difference to bug 4040 consists in the approach.
bug 4040 trays to fix this issues without taking into account the LTR / RTL
nature of the selected user interface; this bug does

*notes*
This proposal does not obsolte bugzilla:04011 – Allow users to change text
direction in all text input and textarea boxes.

I see it as a goal that rendering should be
- optimised according to the LTR / RTL nature of the "content language" on
"content pages" / "content sections"
- and according to the LTR / RTL nature of the "user interface" on "pages
desigend for maintenance / tools / information display".
- User pages would be / could be a combination of both. There is a third BiDi
distinction that should be made and be called "BiDi context". It would make it
easier to create real pages with BiDi content as required for translations and /
or transliterations.

best regards reinhardt [[user:gangleri]]