default value of Right-to-left cursor movement preference

[Richard Kimberly Heck]

On 6/10/24 15:44, Udicoudco wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Personally I don't know anyone who is intentionally
> use the current default value of this preference,
> so I thought about changing the default from 'logical'
> to 'visual' to make the experience of new users easier,
> but I don't want to do that without it being a consensus.
>
> If you want to understand what this preference is for,
> follow these steps:
>
> * Open a new document
> * Open the command buffer (View->Toolbars->Command Buffer->On)
> * Start a new language with an RTL script by typing e.g. language hebrew
>    in the command buffer
> * Open an equation inset, and type several characters in it and outside of it.
> * Start moving the caret with the left and right arrow keys
>
> You will notice how inside the equation the caret navigate to the opposite
> direction from which you are ordering it to, unlike in normal text.
> Note that it happens not only in equations, but in other places which
> are considered intrinsically LTR, like ERT.
>
> After switching the Right-to-left cursor movement preference
> to visual, you should notice that the caret now always moves to the
> direction you are ordering it.
>
> Is there anyone who would prefer to leave things
> as they are?

That makes sense to me. But I'm not sure we can do it in 2.4.x. 
Typically, when we make this kind of change, we add something to 
prefs2prefs_prefs.py so that things do not change for existing users. 
I.e., if someone did want to use 'logical', that would not be written to 
the preferences file, since it's the default. Changing the default would 
then surprise them. So the prefs2prefs code would add

\visual_cursor false

if there's nothing in the existing preferences file.

Riki