[pmwiki-users] skins and RTL wikis

[Hans]

Hi,
I can see on pmwiki.org that
the Arabic group PmWikiAr has text flowing right to left, and all
text is right aligned. Further the SideBar is displayed right,
opposite to its left default for the default skin.
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWikiAr/PmWikiAr

The Farsi (Persian) group PmWikiFa has text flowing right to left
as well, but only the Farsi text. The SideBar is on the left as
per default.
http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWikiFa/PmWikiFa

Both pages linked to contain a markup directive
(:Language: Arabic|Farsi:), and I wonder what this does.
The Farsi page is structured with div markup with the parameter
dir="rtl", which I assume makes the text flow right to left, whereas
the Arabic page does not have this, but the text flows right to left
nonetheless. So how is that achieved? And are there group-specific
config settings, which switch the SideBar to the other side?

If there are automatic switches a skin could use, then I would love to
learn about these, so I can employ them in my Amber skin to change
position of some skin page elements automatically, if possible.

I see in PmWiki/Questions http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/Questions
this till yet unanswered question:

How can I have an RTL PmWiki and customize and Translate PmWiki for
rtl languages such as Persian, Hebrew and...? If it needs programing
can you tell me what I should do with PmWiki and where I should begin,
Please?

PmWiki/Internationalizations http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/Internationalizations
does not address the question of RTL Wikis either, and I thought that
would be the obvious place to document something about this.

This is also linked to UTF-8, and setting up a well functioning UTF-8
wiki, and I see that by including scripts/xlpage-utf-8.php classes for
rtl and ltr are added automatically.

Any ideas on any of these issues please?

Thanks,
Hans