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Re: Hebrew on linux-il
>> 3. It is recommended that new implementations of Hebrew e-mail
>> (including mailing lists...), will support the new standard.
>> One package that is already supporting it is (flame-resistent
>> underwear on...) MS Outlook Express 5 (not 4!).
>
>You've mentioned that this new standard is MS' 'logical' stuff...
No, not really. I mentioned that the new standard recommends using
implicit Hebrew directionality, which MS likes to call "logical".
Contrary to common belief, implicit directionality encoding is not
an MS invention. Far from it. MS chose it for their Windows Hebrew
support (since day one), and for some reason decided to call it
"logical" (as I said in a previous post, I believe this is a misnomer).
Actually, this was a rather far-visioned, *wise* choice on their part
(there, I said it...). However, implicit encoding predates MS' systems.
By the way, almost every standard that includes bidirectional language
support these days, aligns with this recommendation. For example,
the standard for Hebrew (and Arabic) in HTML, *requires* (as opposed
to "recommends"!) implicit encoding (see RFC2070, HTML 4 and so forth).
>is there a formal paper describing anything further? Or is that all there
>is to it?
Of course; a standard can't say "do as MS does", can it...
Currently, the most widely accepted reference for implicit bidi
encoding is the Unicode standard (starting from V2.0). This standard
includes a detailed algorithm that defines bidi behaviour in detail.
(Please don't confuse this with Unicode's 16-bit characters etc.).
Actually, when releasing WIndows 98, MS made slight changes to their
algorithm, to match that of Unicode. Currently they should be aligned.
Unicode V2.1 again presents some very slight modifications, but these
are minor and will not affect most implementations.
The new E-Mail standard (SI 1904) will, of course, make reference
to Unicode (and other standard, open, documents).
Hag Sameach!
Doron Shikmoni