Tod Creasey's Eclipse Blog

As a follow on from my post a couple of days ago I thought I would dive a bit deeper in when to use the Text Processor.

Lets start from the javadoc:

"This class is used to process strings that have special semantic meaning (such as file paths) in RTL-oriented locales so that they render in a way that does not corrupt the semantic meaning of the string but also maintains compliance with the Unicode BiDi algorithm of rendering Bidirectional text.

Processing of the string is done by breaking it down into segments that are specified by a set of user provided delimiters. Directional punctuation characters are injected into the string in order to ensure the string retains its semantic meaning and conforms with the Unicode BiDi algorithm within each segment."

So where do I use it?
Anywhere where the string you are displaying has a series of segments where the ordering of the segments is the same no matter what language you are displaying. The most common examples are file associations, file paths, URLS and URIs.

When is it processing Strings?
The TextProcessor will do bidirectional String processing anytime you are running with your Locale set to one of the four bidirectional languages (Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew or Urdu).

Will it process if my layout is right to left?
Only if your Locale is one of the languages mentioned above.

Do these extra characters get picked up if I copy the String?
Yes. In some applications that do not try and interpret these characters (such as Notepad) they will show up as control characters.

How do I strip the extra directional characters out?
TextProcessor#deprocess(String)will allow you to remove them.

What should I do about input fields for these Strings?
The Eclipse Platform tries to avoid creating behaviour that is inconsistent with the operating system as much as possible. As a result we do not process the input String - the user gets whatever the operating system wants to show them.

Once again we would love to hear from anyone who is using our bidirectional support day to day to give us more feedback.