[XeTeX] Colored Arabic in Tables

[François Charette]

>> A simplified test that you could perform better than me is to use
>> only the bidi package and use other ways for this vocalisation, if
>> they exist. Does tabularx perform without the arabxetex package used
>> or loaded the same? (It seems so.) <- No.
>>     
>
> I have tested this and, just for the records, it is quite obvious  
> that arabxetex causes in some way the problems. With plain utf8 input  
> inside tabularx it is possible to change color attributes without any  
> side effect.
>
>   

I'm still puzzled about the reason for this, but again, this has nothing
to do with setting colors!
The same behaviour occurs with the following minimal document, in which
I only use the relevant portions of the code in arabxetex.sty:

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontfamily{\arabicfont}[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.7]{Scheherazade}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{X}
    {\arabicfont\addfontfeature{Mapping=arabtex-fdf2alif-fullvoc} ha}\\
\end{tabularx}

{\arabicfont\addfontfeature{Mapping=arabtex-fdf2alif-novoc} h}
\end{document}


The problem is that the fullvoc mapping, when called locally in tabularx
first, remains active afterwards, even if one uses a font with a
different mapping once the tabularx environment is closed. As Ulrike has
found out, this strange behaviour is neutralised if one uses \arabicfont
first before the tabularx env. To my unexpert eyes, this could be a
problem with the \addfontfeature macro in fontspec, or a strange bug in
tabularx. Bidi and arabxetex are not guilty in any case ;)

F