RTL / LTR icons -- double-confusion with r/l align

[As Af]

A new feature allows writing text in Hebrew / Arabic direction.
The toolbar icons assigned to it are the same as left/right alignment.

However,
RTL / LTR is NOT right <> left alignment: RTL changes the order in the sentence, while alignment just pushes the whole sentence to the right / left edge of the box.

The icons therefore should be different.
Ultimately, it's best to match RTL buttons in other apps.

The image attached shows few examples from open-source (and 1 from M$) of how RTL buttons look like.

The concept of RTL vs. Alignment is already difficult even to RTL users, and we'd like to emphasize the difference.

Thanks!

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

Would you like to suggest two new icons that fit with the icon sets that Inkscape provides?

[As Af (as-af-greenberg)]

sure,
here are the icons I drew now

SVG, the two on the left
(I don't know how to merge my buttons into the SVG in the sources)

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

I like these.

Would you like to learn how to submit the new buttons?

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

(it should be possible by just using a web browser, no command line skills required.)

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

Actually it might be easier to just used named icons from the icon theme:
- 'format-text-direction-ltr'
  The icon for the left-to-right text formatting action.
- 'format-text-direction-rtl'
  The icon for the right-to-left formatting action.

 (I attached the defaults from the Adwaita icon theme)

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

See
  https://specifications.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
for the full list of named icons

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

Oh :-o - I'm so sorry, As Af !!!

I didn't know these existed... Thanks for the link, Eduard.

[As Af (as-af-greenberg)]

not sure how to react :)

1. my icons are SVG

2. my icons follow more widely used standard

3. the "standard" arrows attached here

4. i don't know what are "tango icons"
C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\icons\tango_icons.svg
i guess it's another theme, like athe above mentioned "Adwaita".

5. i just realized that this is the standard set
C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\icons\tango_icons.svg
and the rest of the files on that directory are probably overrides / additions.

6. i don't know if "Adwaita" theme exists in Windows OS, or we need to update both of them.

7. not sure what to do next, if anything.

[Hachmann (marenhachmann)]

As Af:

Eduard Braun suggested using the icons that come with one's desktop theme. There seem to be two universally acknowledged icon names for these icons, which are used, too. But the developer decided to provide the icons, instead of rely on them being loaded from the theme. One of the icons that have been added is identical to the one that is used for horizontal text (in contrast to vertical) - not to 'left alignment', btw., that icon looks different for me.

So a solution that fits well with the selected desktop theme (but not necessarily with the icon set that is used for Inkscape's own icons) would be to delete the icons, and rely on them be delivered with the theme.

Not sure what happens when the icon is not available in the selected icon set for your theme - if we can provide a fallback via icons that come with Inkscape. Probably not, I guess the icons that come with Inkscape have precedence.

Additionally, Inkscape comes with three different icon sets, which also aren't really consistent as for the icons they provide / don't provide (as far as I can see) ...
We do have two icons for vertical text direction, for example (in master).

Adwaita exists for Windows, it's delivered with Inkscape, (as part of gtk?) as far as I understand.

Tbh., it looks to me as if the 'bug' was more with the horizontal lines icon, as that one assumes a writing direction from left to right...

I'm also not sure what to do :-/ - but I'm terribly sorry that I didn't dig into this a bit deeper, before answering your report.