Thanks, Hans!  This does solve the problem with the list of numbers.  And actually if I add a numberstyle field, I can the section heads the way I like.  Here is the setup that worked.  (I will update Wiki later.)

\setupdirections[bidi=global,method=two]
\setupalign[r2l]

\def\LTR#1{{\lefttoright#1}}
\def\leftpersiandecimals#1{\LTR{\persiandecimals{#1}}}
\defineconversion[leftpersiandecimals][\leftpersiandecimals]
\setuphead[chapter,title,section,subject] [conversion=leftpersiandecimals,numberstyle=\righttoleft]

\defineseparatorset[dashsep][-,-,-,-]

\setuphead[section][sectionseparatorset=dashsep]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl> wrote:

On 4/11/2016 4:25 AM, Mohammad Hossein Bateni wrote:

Hans & Wolfgang,

Do you have suggestions here?  How can I get the behavior I want for the
section head numbers?

In fact, the following may be quite relevant.

\usemodule[simplefonts]
\setmainfont[ALM Fixed][features=arabic,range=arabic]

\setupdirections[bidi=global,method=default]
\setupalign[r2l]

\starttext

اعداد ۱، ۲، ۳ و ۴ را در نظر بگیرید.

اعداد 1، 2، 3 و 4 را در نظر بگیرید.

اعداد 1, 2, 3 و 4 را در نظر بگیرید.

\stoptext


I expect the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 to appear in the same order from
right to left.  However, the visual order that I observe (regardless of
whether I use Persian digits or English digits, or whether I use Persian
or English commas) is 4, 1, 2, 3 (from left to right).  Is this a bug in
the bidi code?  If so, are there any workarounds?

method=two

Thanks,
Hossein

On Fri, Apr 8, 2016 at 5:20 PM, Mohammad Hossein Bateni

<bateni@gmail.com <mailto:bateni@gmail.com>> wrote:

    Hi,

    This is concerning an RTL text.  I have one chapter and 10 sections
    under that.  My goal is to achieve the following.
    1) The number 10 should appear correctly with '1' visually to the
    left of '0'.
    2) The chapter number should visually appear to the right of the
    section number.
    3) Chapter and section numbers should be separated with a dash.
      (This is ignored in this email and I will follow up about it in
    another thread.  To get a minimal working example, I also do not try
    to change the numbers to use Persian digits.)

    In particular, the headings will be visually something like the
    following (aligned to the right).
    elpmas 1
    txet 1-1
    txet 2-1
    txet 3-1
    ...
    txet 10-1

    Here's the first attempt.

    %% Attempt 1
    \setupalign[r2l]

    \starttext
    \placecontent

    \chapter{sample}
    \dorecurse{10}{\section{text}}
    \stoptext

    The result is:
    elpmas 1
    txet 1-1
    ...
    txet 01-1


    Then I add "\setupdirections[bidi=global,method=default]" to the
    beginning and I get the most strange result (number right-aligned
    but texts left-aligned):
    sample                                    1
    text                                       1.1
    ...
    text                                     1.10


    A third attempt gives almost what I want (without period as the
    separator).

    %% Attempt 3
    \setupalign[r2l]

    \def\LTR#1{{\lefttoright#1}}
    \def\leftnumbers#1{\LTR{\numbers{#1}}}
    \defineconversion[leftnumbers][\leftnumbers]
    \setuphead[chapter,title,section,subject] [conversion=leftnumbers]

    \starttext
    \placecontent

    \chapter{sample}
    \dorecurse{10}{\section{text}}
    \stoptext


    The big problem is that in my RTL documents, I always have the
    setupdirections command, which messes things up here.  (This makes
    it difficult to one section name with English title, which should
    still be typeset on the right-hand side of the page.)  Note that in
    attempt 2 above, there were two issues:
    (1) Text and numbers appeared on the two far ends of the screen
    instead of being close to each other.  This does not happen when I
    use Farsi text.
    (2) Chapter number appears to the left of section number.


    %% Attempt 5
    \usemodule[simplefonts]
    \setmainfont[ALM Fixed][features=arabic,range=arabic]

    \setupdirections[bidi=global,method=default]
    \setupalign[r2l]

    \starttext
    \placecontent

    \chapter{نمونه}
    \dorecurse{10}{\section{متن}}
    \stoptext


    Interestingly the table of contents looks fine if I put the number
    inside an LTR macro; still in the main body, the section heads are
    typeset incorrectly.

    %% Attempt 6
    \usemodule[simplefonts]
    \setmainfont[ALM Fixed][features=arabic,range=arabic]

    \setupdirections[bidi=global,method=default]
    \setupalign[r2l]

    \def\LTR#1{{\lefttoright#1}}
    \def\leftnumbers#1{\LTR{\numbers{#1}}}
    \defineconversion[leftnumbers][\leftnumbers]
    \setuphead[chapter,title,section,subject] [conversion=leftnumbers]

    \starttext
    \placecontent

    \chapter{نمونه}
    \dorecurse{10}{\section{متن}}
    \stoptext


    I guess the solution is to get the entire section head number string
    (e.g., 1.10) to have RTL direction, however, each individual number
    string inside (say, 1 or 10) should be written LTR.  How can this be
    achieved?

    The six TeX files (with corresponding PDF outputs) are attached.

    BTW this is using ConTeXt ver: 2016.04.01 13:01 MKIV beta fmt:
    2016.4.7 int: english/english, running LuaTeX, Version beta-0.90.0
    (TeX Live 2016) on Mac OS X.

    Thanks a lot,
    —MHB

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