Text editing RTL

[Hixie]

Text fields need to have a bidi cursor that shows what direction they are going in.

[Hixie]

Specifically:

• It should be possible to tap between LTR text and RTL text on both ends. For example in "3WERBEH english2 1WERBEH", you should be able to tap on either end of the english text.
• On Android, when a cursor is between text of different directions, it should show the cursor in both locations. The side that is near the LTR text should be a half-cursor on the bottom, the part that is near the RTL text should be a half-cursor on the top. This depends on getOffsetForCaret should return two values at an LTR/RTL boundary #11738.

[srix55]

Any updates on RTL support for widgets? I'm writing an app that displays in both arabic & english. It's surprising to see no upvotes to this issue. I'm fairly certain that this is a very important requirement. From what I've read elsewhere in the site, flutter team values issues as much as the need. So, plz leave an upvote, bystanders. Edit: I just saw that there's an entire project within flutter that's dedicated to internationalization :) Link: https://github.com/flutter/flutter/projects/17#card-3918549

[Hixie]

rtl is basically done, this is one of the few remaining issues.

[justinmc]

@Hixie Do you know where you got the idea of 2 cursors at a bi-di boundary? Is this still the behavior that we want for Flutter?

@LongCatIsLooong Suggested putting the cursor under the character that would be deleted with a backspace. Maybe that's unconventional, though.

[Hixie]

It's what Android did when I filed the bug. I don't know if they still do it.

Our text fields should be identical to the platform text fields (at least by default, but in general I think these are complicated enough that we shouldn't further complicate them by adding our own twist on these behaviours, just implementing all the platforms' default behaviours is confusing enough as it is).

[justinmc]

I agree about keeping the same behavior as the platform. I think I can close this issue unless you see anything we're still missing.

It looks like native Android no longer has 2 cursors for bi-di (this is Keep):

Also it seems like it's possible to place the cursor wherever I tap in bi-di text in Flutter now:

Screencast.from.2024-03-22.10-49-39.webm

[justinmc]

To be clear, Flutter still has problems with RTL text editing, but those are tracked in other issues.

[github-actions]

This thread has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity after it was closed. If you are still experiencing a similar issue, please open a new bug, including the output of flutter doctor -v and a minimal reproduction of the issue.