Language packs and default behavior
Timo Pietilä
I have a suggestion to development for Firefox and Thunderbird:
As you release localized builds of your products you should also release
language packs for those builds, and allow easy change of UI for those
builds.
This helps a lot in multilanguage corporate environments to apply your
products. It feels very stupid that there already are localized builds
and language packs but *NOT* easy way to change between languages.
Entire multilanguage scheme should be such that base code is language
neutral and different languages are just language packs that are
installed on top of that.
I just recently downloaded FI -languagepack for Firefox and almost wrote
a bug-report because there was no way to switch using it from UI. Then I
found (using google) an article that explained that you need to start
Firefox by adding this and that to command line.
That is stupid beyond belief. If there is language pack then that should
have easy way to switch using it. There is add-on that allows that but
using add-on for basic function is another thing that is stupid beyond
belief.
This (and few another things) makes me feel that this entire Mozilla
product family is designed by bunch of script-kiddies and people that
have no experience about real jobs, and it is designed as toys for home
users instead of tools for work. And I believe I'm not the only one.
Timo Pietil�
Axel Hecht
Right, a flame always helps to get people to value ones opinion.
The only application we do that comes with multi-locale builds is
Fennec, which comes with a UI to switch locales. Whether that UI is
great or not remains to be seen.
The UI that the Mozilla suite had before Firefox (and Thunderbird) were
created sucked, and was only useful to a small user community. As such,
it was removed, with extensions being able to fill in.
Which is where we're still at. In those places where we advertised
langpacks (we did for fx 3.0 early locales), we did advertise such a
locale switcher add-on, too.
Axel
Simon Paquet
> I have a suggestion to development for Firefox and Thunderbird:
>
> As you release localized builds of your products you should also
> release language packs for those builds, and allow easy change
> of UI for those builds.
We already do release language packs and have been doing this for a
long time. See
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.23/linux-i686/xpi/
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/3.0.1/win32/xpi/
for two examples of this.
> This helps a lot in multilanguage corporate environments to apply
> your products. It feels very stupid that there already are localized
> builds and language packs but *NOT* easy way to change between
> languages.
>
> [...]
>
> I just recently downloaded FI -languagepack for Firefox and almost
> wrote a bug-report because there was no way to switch using it from
> UI. Then I found (using google) an article that explained that you
> need to start Firefox by adding this and that to command line.
>
> That is stupid beyond belief. If there is language pack then that
> should have easy way to switch using it. There is add-on that allows
> that but using add-on for basic function is another thing that is
> stupid beyond belief.
We strongly believe that the base product should only contain
features that appeal to a majority or at least a large minority of
our userbase.
Multi-locale- and language-switching-functionality is not considered
to be among those features. It serves no purpose for the large
majority of our users, which are totally content with using
Thunderbird in their native language or in English.
For those few, that are not served well by this, the mozilla add-on
ecosystem can fulfill their needs.
> This (and few another things) makes me feel that this entire
> Mozilla product family is designed by bunch of script-kiddies and
> people that have no experience about real jobs, and it is designed
> as toys for home users instead of tools for work. And I believe
> I'm not the only one.
You have an awfully awkward way of telling us, how much you appreciate
that we build and support a variety of first-class products for free.
Cya
Simon
--
Thunderbird/Calendar Localisation (L10n) Coordinator
Thunderbird l10n blog: http://thunderbird-l10n.blogspot.com
Calendar website maintainer: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Calendar developer blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietil� wrote on 03. Feb 2010:
>
>> I have a suggestion to development for Firefox and Thunderbird:
>>
>> As you release localized builds of your products you should also
>> release language packs for those builds, and allow easy change of UI
>> for those builds.
>
> We already do release language packs and have been doing this for a
> long time. See
>
> http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.23/linux-i686/xpi/
>
> http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/3.0.1/win32/xpi/
>
> for two examples of this.
Where are links to those places? Why doesn't add-on download page notice
that there are language packs for most of those?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox (or .../thunderbird) doesn't
list language packs even if you choose "Dictionaries & Language Packs"
in drop-down menu, and those are not listed in download-pages for
Firefox or Thunderbird, only localized builds are listed.
I know those exist, but you have a very weak support for those.
>> This helps a lot in multilanguage corporate environments to apply your
>> products. It feels very stupid that there already are localized builds
>> and language packs but *NOT* easy way to change between languages.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> I just recently downloaded FI -languagepack for Firefox and almost
>> wrote a bug-report because there was no way to switch using it from
>> UI. Then I found (using google) an article that explained that you
>> need to start Firefox by adding this and that to command line.
>>
>> That is stupid beyond belief. If there is language pack then that
>> should have easy way to switch using it. There is add-on that allows
>> that but using add-on for basic function is another thing that is
>> stupid beyond belief.
>
> We strongly believe that the base product should only contain
> features that appeal to a majority or at least a large minority of
> our userbase.
So basically you are saying that multilanguage corporates should not use
your products.
> Multi-locale- and language-switching-functionality is not considered
> to be among those features.
Then why do you have language packs that can be used if you have some
knowledge that no base user has? At all? That are easily installed? But
not easily used unless you use some *other* product to use them?
> It serves no purpose for the large
> majority of our users, which are totally content with using
> Thunderbird in their native language or in English.
I believe "totally content" in this means that those people simply don't
know that they could have a choice. Have you ever done any survey to see
if people would like to have multiple languages handy?
I bet that if I say in my corporate to my users that "BTW did you know
that you could have Firefox in your native language but Mozilla
developers just chose not to support that kind of use" those users would
not be very "content".
> For those few, that are not served well by this, the mozilla add-on
> ecosystem can fulfill their needs.
That is a bad way to do things for corporate environment, if same
functionality could be easily added to base product. Or actually that
this basic functionality (or "feature" as you said) _ALREADY EXIST_ in
base product, only UI for it is missing.
Tools-options-content-languages-User interface for Firefox and
tools-options-display-tab-languages for Thunderbird? And option to
download those languages, if they do not exist in system yet. This is
basically _only_ UI change, all basic functionality, even those language
packs already exist. Should be d*amn easy to implement.
>> This (and few another things) makes me feel that this entire Mozilla
>> product family is designed by bunch of script-kiddies and people that
>> have no experience about real jobs, and it is designed as toys for
>> home users instead of tools for work. And I believe I'm not the only one.
>
> You have an awfully awkward way of telling us, how much you appreciate
> that we build and support a variety of first-class products for free.
"first class" is not what I would say for your products. UI is pretty
nice, but it obviously could be better and support for older versions of
your products is pretty much non-professional status right now. Security
updates take months to appear (at least for Thunderbird 2.x) and both
Firefox and Thunderbird have very weak support for tuned up silent
installations and upgrades and major version changes.
Like I said, it feels that mozilla family is being developed by bunch of
script-kiddies and people that have no real jobs. Or at least those that
do all this development have no experience about larger corporation
environments, because those products obviously are meant to be used by
home users.
All software sucks. All hardware sucks too, but less.
I guess I'm angry because there is a lot of pressure currently in my
workplace for increase security and tighten up centralized
administration, and your products just don't work well in this kind of
environment. Because of that there is pressure to get rid of Mozilla
family. I would hate to switch from Thunderbird to MS Lookout.
Timo Pietil�
Simon Paquet
| DISCLAIMER:
| Just let me state up-front, that I speak neither for the Firefox
| nor for the Thunderbird product teams. Some phrases that you used
| seem to imply to me that you think that this is the case. It is not.
> Where are links to those places?
There no direct links to these places as far as I know.
Yes, this could be improved.
> Why doesn't add-on download page notice that there are language
> packs for most of those?
There is no direct, automatic interface between ftp.mozilla.org
and addons.mozilla.org, that's why.
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox (or .../thunderbird)
> doesn't list language packs even if you choose "Dictionaries &
> Language Packs" in drop-down menu, and those are not listed in
> download-pages for Firefox or Thunderbird, only localized builds
> are listed.
Basically, language packs get automatically created during the
build process, so it is very easy for mozilla.org to just push them
to the FTP server.
Listing stuff on AMO requires manual intervention and doing that
for 50 locales (for Thunderbird) or 70 locales (for Firefox) is
quite a lot of maintenance work, that currently neither the Firefox
nor the Thunderbird team have the resources for. However, localizers
can add their language packs to AMO if they want to, but most
obviously do not see the need for it since almost everyone just uses
the localized builds.
>>> That is stupid beyond belief. If there is language pack then that
>>> should have easy way to switch using it. There is add-on that
>>> allows that but using add-on for basic function is another thing
>>> that is stupid beyond belief.
>>
>> We strongly believe that the base product should only contain
>> features that appeal to a majority or at least a large minority of
>> our userbase.
>
> So basically you are saying that multilanguage corporates should
> not use your products.
No, I'm basically saying that multilanguage corporates should use
the localized builds that are released or they should rollout a
customized install package that installs the necessary language
packs together with the language switching add-on.
>> Multi-locale- and language-switching-functionality is not
>> considered to be among those features.
>
> Then why do you have language packs that can be used if you have
> some knowledge that no base user has? At all? That are easily
> installed? But not easily used unless you use some *other*
> product to use them?
Like I said above, those packs are created automatically anyway and
the decision was made to provide them to the small minority of users
that have a need for it.
>> It serves no purpose for the large majority of our users, which
>> are totally content with using Thunderbird in their native
>> language or in English.
>
> I believe "totally content" in this means that those people simply
> don't know that they could have a choice. Have you ever done any
> survey to see if people would like to have multiple languages handy?
Well, as Axel already said, we had UI for language switching for years
in the Mozilla Application Suite (and it still is in its successor
SeaMonkey as far as I'm aware). There were never any major complaints
when this UI was ripped out and as far as I know even the SeaMonkey
team is thinking about retiring that piece of UI.
I hear far more complaints from users, who complain that Thunderbird
is not available in their language at all. To me this seems to imply
that there is a very limited need to have more than one language
available in your browser or mail client.
> I bet that if I say in my corporate to my users that "BTW did you
> know that you could have Firefox in your native language but Mozilla
> developers just chose not to support that kind of use" those users
> would not be very "content".
I don't think that is fair.
All the people that are working on the localization experience for
the different products put a lot of effort into making sure, that
their application is available in as many languages as possible.
For example with Thunderbird 3.0.1 we added 12 languages compared
to Thunderbird 2.0.0.23.
So the use of a Mozilla product in the user's native language is
absolutely supported. What is not supported however, is your
particular configuration/implementation details.
But as I have outlined above, there are accepted ways of making sure
that your users can use Firefox or Thunderbird in their native
language.
>> For those few, that are not served well by this, the mozilla
>> add-on ecosystem can fulfill their needs.
>
> That is a bad way to do things for corporate environment, if same
> functionality could be easily added to base product. Or actually
> that this basic functionality (or "feature" as you said) _ALREADY
> EXIST_ in base product, only UI for it is missing.
>
> Tools-options-content-languages-User interface for Firefox and
> tools-options-display-tab-languages for Thunderbird? And option to
> download those languages, if they do not exist in system yet. This
> is basically _only_ UI change, all basic functionality, even those
> language packs already exist. Should be d*amn easy to implement.
Why should an UI element be implemented that is entirely useless to
the large majority of Firefox/Thunderbird users, when it would be
*damn easy* (to use your phrase) for you to add the language-
switching add-on to your install package?
Simon
--
Thunderbird/Calendar Localization (L10n) Coordinator
Timo Pietilä
Because there is quite large minority that would benefit from it.
Also adding that to install-package is not that easy. How would you do
it? xpi-installations are user-based, not system-wide as far as I know.
They seem to go in installing users profile directory under application
data. There is no similar thing in "All Users\Application Data"
-directory, or in "Program files\Mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird)". Where
exactly do I need to put it in order to make it available to everyone
when I install program with system-rights?
Timo Pietil�
Joshua Cranmer
> Also adding that to install-package is not that easy. How would you do
> it? xpi-installations are user-based, not system-wide as far as I know.
> They seem to go in installing users profile directory under application
> data. There is no similar thing in "All Users\Application Data"
> -directory, or in "Program files\Mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird)". Where
> exactly do I need to put it in order to make it available to everyone
> when I install program with system-rights?
<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Installing_extensions#Global_installation>
Copy the .xpi file into the <installation directory>\extensions folder.
When you start your Mozilla application again, it displays an
installation dialog, asking "The following items were found in your
Extensions folder. Do you want to install them?"
Robert Kaiser
> The only application we do that comes with multi-locale builds is
> Fennec, which comes with a UI to switch locales. Whether that UI is
> great or not remains to be seen.
SeaMonkey doesn't come with multi-locale builds, but with a language
switching UI by default, just as a note.
And we even publicly link language packs from the download page...
Robert Kaiser
Dan Mosedale
> All software sucks. All hardware sucks too, but less.
>
> I guess I'm angry because there is a lot of pressure currently in my
> workplace for increase security and tighten up centralized
> administration, and your products just don't work well in this kind of
> environment. Because of that there is pressure to get rid of Mozilla
> family. I would hate to switch from Thunderbird to MS Lookout.
anger as personalized rants into development lists tends not to have the
effect of fixing those problems. Instead, a bunch of people who care a
lot about the work they're doing feel crappy. Furthermore, that feeling
makes them less inclined to listen to your suggestions, even in cases
where they are accurate.
If you're truly interested in helping Mozilla products get better,
please find some other way to vent your anger about this, and frame your
posts in a constructive, non-accusatory, civilized manner.
Dan
Rolf Gloor
Thanks Dan
I couldn't have articulated more appropriate.
@Timo:
------
While I am interessted in following your threads in technical terms, I
am very much disappointed by your wording and 'the music you played'.
You have some valued point in your postings. And as you see, people are
in general willing to help you with solutions.
So, please calm down and take your emotions out of your postings.
More over give the people some appreciation and prise for the help and
good will you receive from them.
This will generate a positive and constructive foundation, which will
encourage people to listen to your issues and spent some of their free
time to help you.
Greetings from Switzerland,
Rolf
Axel Grude
> Simon Paquet wrote:
>> Timo Pietil� wrote on 03. Feb 2010:
>>
>>> I have a suggestion to development for Firefox and Thunderbird:
>>>
>>> As you release localized builds of your products you should also
>>> release language packs for those builds, and allow easy change of UI
>>> for those builds.
>>
>> We already do release language packs and have been doing this for a
>> long time. See
>>
>> http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.23/linux-i686/xpi/
>>
>> http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/3.0.1/win32/xpi/
>>
>> for two examples of this.
>
> Where are links to those places? Why doesn't add-on download page notice
> that there are language packs for most of those?
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox (or .../thunderbird) doesn't
> list language packs even if you choose "Dictionaries & Language Packs"
> in drop-down menu, and those are not listed in download-pages for
> Firefox or Thunderbird, only localized builds are listed.
>
So it wouldn't be good (especially for a corporate environment) to link
to these from the official language pack site...
I couldn't find links to any usable language packs that are compatible
with TB 3.0 on the main Languages page...
> I know those exist, but you have a very weak support for those.
>
>>> This helps a lot in multilanguage corporate environments to apply
>>> your products. It feels very stupid that there already are localized
>>> builds and language packs but *NOT* easy way to change between
>>> languages.
It is easy to switch using the Quick Locale switcher extension. A simple
search on addons.mozilla.org:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
enter "switch languages"
click on the first result.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>
>>> That is stupid beyond belief. If there is language pack then that
>>> should have easy way to switch using it. There is add-on that allows
>>> that but using add-on for basic function is another thing that is
>>> stupid beyond belief.
this is just your opinion. I am glad that Thunderbird is not Outlook,
and tries to give all functionality to all users, confusing even me (I
am a software developer). Yeah, outlook is neat, you can do awesome
things with it, if you're willing to do a few courses or ask people with
decades of experience.
The Mozilla platform takes a different approach - give the necessary 85%
of functionality that everybody needs, and let the users decide which
additional functions make out the missing 15%.
Or to put it the other way round: Most users only use 5% of a programs
functionality most of the time, but it is not know which 5%.
In my humble opinion bundling Lightning with the Thunderbird Installer
would be a much more important thing than a language switching interface.
However, you're free to switch over to Postbox (which is also based on
the same Mozilla branch) that has this functionality built in. It might
even be more suitable for your corporate environment - a lot of Mozilla
developers actually use that instead. I have SeaMonkey, Postbox and
Thunderbird installed, at the company I am using Outlook 2003 and when
at home the dreaded Outlook web client; of all the choices I find I
always return to Thunderbird, because it just has the right amount of
features and extensibility for what I believe is missing for my personal
choice.
In a corporate environment, you could harness this flexibility by
offering a standard installation with a selection of extensions (such as
the Quick Locale Switcher, maybe Lookout in order to read the
proprietary attachments of Microsoft mail clients, Lightning Calendar
and the gmail calendar provider) - another Multinational Company might
decide to deny the users an obvious choice of easily switching the
locale as it actually makes support _harder_.
E.g. the extension that I have the good fortune of developing currently
supports 10 different locales and by rights I should be able to help
users by giving them localized screen shots. Could become a bit of a
maintenance nightmare when the Japanese or Vietnamese users ask why the
button kanji-183 kanji-781 kanji-835 doesn't work? Therefore I strongly
disagree with your opinion, especially in the light of being able to use
this product in a corporate environment.
In actual fact the possibility of _reducing_ the feature set is one of
Mozilla's greatest assets, purely from a maintainability stand point.
>>
>> We strongly believe that the base product should only contain
>> features that appeal to a majority or at least a large minority of
>> our userbase.
(sic)
>
> So basically you are saying that multilanguage corporates should not use
> your products.
You got it backwards (see above)
>
>> Multi-locale- and language-switching-functionality is not considered
>> to be among those features.
>
> Then why do you have language packs that can be used if you have some
> knowledge that no base user has? At all? That are easily installed? But
> not easily used unless you use some *other* product to use them?
you have discovered the dichotomy of extendable, open source software.
Not everybody can do it, but with a little bit of effort you can achieve
amazing things with this platform. :)
>
>> It serves no purpose for the large
>> majority of our users, which are totally content with using
>> Thunderbird in their native language or in English.
>
> I believe "totally content" in this means that those people simply don't
> know that they could have a choice. Have you ever done any survey to see
> if people would like to have multiple languages handy?
Have you done any yourself? Feel free to contribute.
>
> I bet that if I say in my corporate to my users that "BTW did you know
> that you could have Firefox in your native language but Mozilla
> developers just chose not to support that kind of use" those users would
> not be very "content".
wrong: "chose not to support" - they have provided the platform. The
community provides the support for the frills. There is great value in
this - I highly recommend reading the article "the cathedral and the
bazaar", to be found here:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html
>
>> For those few, that are not served well by this, the mozilla add-on
>> ecosystem can fulfill their needs.
>
> That is a bad way to do things for corporate environment, if same
> functionality could be easily added to base product. Or actually that
> this basic functionality (or "feature" as you said) _ALREADY EXIST_ in
> base product, only UI for it is missing.
If you work in software development for a while you will find out that
it is extremely difficult to define what functionality is part of the
"base functionality" - ask 10 different users and I can guarantee you
will get 10 different answers.
>
> Tools-options-content-languages-User interface for Firefox and
> tools-options-display-tab-languages for Thunderbird? And option to
> download those languages, if they do not exist in system yet. This is
> basically _only_ UI change, all basic functionality, even those language
> packs already exist. Should be d*amn easy to implement.
Why don't you join the fray, like you said its probably easy so have a
try yourself?
Or you can raise a bug in bugzilla and request this feature! A lot of
functionality of Thunderbird came about this way. If enough people
answer to the bug, eventually a programmer will come along and implement
it. Then there will be users who test it and if everybody agrees that
its a useful feature it can eventually become part of the product.
That's how it works.
>>> This (and few another things) makes me feel that this entire Mozilla
>>> product family is designed by bunch of script-kiddies and people that
>>> have no experience about real jobs, and it is designed as toys for
>>> home users instead of tools for work. And I believe I'm not the only
>>> one.
I hope you have donned your fireman outfit when you wrote that
paragraph. The script kiddies are the ones that write viruses for
outlook. You can also find some among the extension builders, but
believe me to add something valuable to this product it needs a bit more
knowledge. But I won't descend to the level of trying to prove how
knowledgeable I am, let it be enough for me to tell you: erm, there is a
learning curve. There are several technologies and programming languages
to be learned, various tools to be used in order to extend the Mozilla
platform; and you have to cover a lot of mileage to write an extension
that is both useful and professional.
>>
>> You have an awfully awkward way of telling us, how much you appreciate
>> that we build and support a variety of first-class products for free.
>
> "first class" is not what I would say for your products. UI is pretty
> nice, but it obviously could be better and support for older versions of
> your products is pretty much non-professional status right now.
Are you serious? I think you should do a little more research before you
come up with claims like this - just compare the list of known
vulnerabilities of the oh so very professional Internet Explorer with
same lists for both Fx3 and Fx2. Then you can do the same for outlook
and Thunderbird, and once you're done, come back and present your
findings. Otherwise the word "troll" would come to mind.
> Security
> updates take months to appear (at least for Thunderbird 2.x) and both
> Firefox and Thunderbird have very weak support for tuned up silent
> installations and upgrades and major version changes.
I can't complain. Isn't there help / check for updates... ? I am always
amazed at the number of security patches that is pushed on the
Thunderbird users, as opposed to the minimal number in Outlook? So, is
outlook the safer product?
In my experience any serious vulnerabilities in Thunderbird lead to
instant patches.
>
> Like I said, it feels that mozilla family is being developed by bunch of
> script-kiddies and people that have no real jobs. Or at least those that
> do all this development have no experience about larger corporation
> environments, because those products obviously are meant to be used by
> home users.
You're funny, but you're guessing. If you look at usage statistics there
is a hell of a lot more activity during the week than at the weekends,
which a clear indicator that Thunderbird is used in professional
environments.
hey, and don't use the term "script kiddies" if you can; its just
derogatory - for example, script kiddies don't use version control
(CVS,SVN) or bug tracking systems (bugzilla).
>
> All software sucks. All hardware sucks too, but less.
Awww, I don't feel the love ;)
>
> I guess I'm angry because there is a lot of pressure currently in my
> workplace for increase security and tighten up centralized
> administration, and your products just don't work well in this kind of
> environment.
this is simply not correct. It is just that there is a lot more know how
about Microsoft products because there are more courses available.
> Because of that there is pressure to get rid of Mozilla
> family. I would hate to switch from Thunderbird to MS Lookout.
And who wouldn't. But it could be worse they could force you to use
Lotus Notes :)
Axel