Ability to specify text direction in ReST

[mabolek]

Feature request

It would be great to be able to specify text direction in sections of text.

This could for example be achieved with .. role:: rtl (for blocks). Maybe an inline option should also be possible? For example Example in Arabic is :rtl:`مثال`

[jaapio]

Thanks for your request. I do not fully understand what is need in the output. Why would one set the direction of a text? How would this reflect in the output?

[mabolek]

In HTML, it would set the dir attribute of the surrounding tag.

For example, this would make blocks of text in right-to-left languages (like Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, etc.) are legible. This is comparable to if text in the latin alphabet were written in the wrong direction — simply illegible: !drah si sdrawkcab gnidaeR

PS! For completeness, there should probably be a .. role:: ltr too, for left-to-right in a right-to-left setting.