Comment 3 for bug 927931

Support for RTL, including those directionality controls, should be enabled by default, regardless of the user's locale.

This is because many RTL users choose a non-RTL locale and are then left wondering where the RTL controls are.

Here's the description from downstream Ubuntu bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/927931
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This is concerning the usability issue where an RTL user gets in front of LibreOffice and doesn't find the two directionality buttons in the toolbar (OMG!!!). He won't find them anywhere until he does 8 mouse clicks to turn the RTL feature on:

Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages -> Enabled for complex text layout (CTL) -> CTL: <Language> -> OK

My mom can't do this :-/ .

This is how this happens:

CTL is off by default in LibreOffice, and thus RTL is, too.

As I've been briefed, this is how it gets turned on for RTL users automatically:
1. RTL locales
2. A language support package of one of the RTL languages is installed

The problem is that these two triggers for CTL don't cover all the situations where an RTL user runs LibreOffice.

Many RTL users choose a non-RTL locale. They can also choose not to install any of the language support packages. The presence of an RTL language layout is all that indicates their RTL-ness :) Even when RTL users use a friend's/public computer as guests they expect the RTL buttons.

Then, why make RTL off by default? Does it cost a lot of memory? Does it have bad Karma? :)

The expectation to have those RTL buttons is because they seem to be always there in Microsoft Office since as far as I can remember. I never had to turn anything on. They were always there by default.

In order to understand the severity of this issue, let me tell you what users do when they don't find those RTL buttons. They try to configure the toolbar, thinking that they must be disabled there. They find them enabled, actually. Although enabled in the toolbar, they don't appear :-O . After that they're quite lost so they might go to the correct Language Settings -> Languages configuration section. There, they will not find "RTL" or "Left to right". How would they know whether to enable the "Enhanced language support" for Asian languages or for Complex text layout? Most users would lose a few hairs by that point.

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Thanks and blessings,
Shahar