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B2G Localization: pushing back the schedule

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Staś Małolepszy

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Jul 28, 2012, 10:31:05 PM7/28/12
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Hi all,

ABSTRACT: The string freeze for B2G will happen in a few weeks. No new
string freeze date as of today. You can still start working on a few
related things.


If you followed my recent announcements on this list closely, you
probably know that I was going to announce a string freeze for B2G,
a.k.a. Firefox OS, this Friday, July 27th. That didn't happen and there
was a good reason for it.

We are pushing the schedule of the B2G project back a few weeks. I
don't expect the localization to start by the end of August.


Why is this happening?
-----------------------

Due to the current hardware availability and us needing more time to get
the code and the features in a good shape, we decided that it will be
good for the project if we extend the time we have for the current
milestone, and make sure everything works like it should.

The exact schedule is yet to be determined. I hope to have more details
in a week or two, so please do follow the newsgroup and expect more
posts coming soon.


Is this a good thing?
---------------------

Yes :) Having more time is obviously beneficial in many respects:

- less bugs in the code!

- more testing that go into the final release,

- the main localization phase will not happen in August, which
traditionally is a holiday month in many regions,

- there's a MozCamp happening in September, so we'll have a chance to
talk about the localizability and the localization process during it,

- it will be easier to synchronize the localization of Gaia with the
localization of Gecko 17 on which B2G will be based (17 goes to aurora
on 8/27).


Can we start working on something else today?
---------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, there still are a few other things that you can do today to
help B2G and Gaia be ready for localization.


- Review the wireframes of Gaia apps.

Read more at
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.l10n/YvI5gMCn6TU


- Test desktop builds and file bugs

More details here: http://informationisart.com/11/


- Localize Mozilla Marketplace

The Marketplace will be an important part of the Firefox OS experience:
see Wil Clouser's emails to this list about AMO localization


- Localize Mozilla Persona

Mozilla Persona (previously: BrowserID) will, again, be an important
identity-management piece of Firefox OS and the Marketplace: see Matjaž
Horvat's emails to this list about Persona localization.


* * *

Let me know if you have any questions, or if anything isn't clear to
you. I'll be happy to help!

-stas

Michael Bauer

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Jul 29, 2012, 6:36:18 AM7/29/12
to dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
Hi StaStaś,

Thanks for the update. I'm having a crazy summer and must have missed
that about Marketplace. Where do we localize it again?

Different point, kind of related to the l10n suggestions we were asked
about B2G which didn't occur to me at the time (as I said, fried brain)
- will B2G give the user the freedom to choose the UI language of 3rd
party apps? I was reminded of the force-locale problem for many
"smaller" languages yesterday when trying to help a friend to get an app
in a language not supported by iPhone. Yes, I know we're not iPhone but
most mobile OS don't really give you a choice when selecting the
language of an app - you get the OS language or nothing. On Android I
can sort of get around that by downloading another app which makes
Android think it's in Scottish Gaelic and then forces any available app
to Gaelic but that's not foolproof as it has a tendency to reset itself
to English. And in any case, the one-user-one-language approach does not
correspond to people's rather more complex linguistic habits.

Since Mozilla is a lot about giving the user control, I'm hoping that
B2G will be smart enough to check for a available languages of an app
and then give me a choice but I just wanted to raise it to make sure it
didn't just get forgotten!

Cheers,

Michael

29/07/2012 03:31, sgrìobh Staś Małolepszy:

Robert Kaiser

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Jul 30, 2012, 8:40:14 AM7/30/12
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Michael Bauer schrieb:
> - will B2G give the user the freedom to choose the UI language of 3rd
> party apps?

Apps on B2G are web apps, so whatever locale the web app supports will
be available. Now, by default, I guess the web apps will go with the
accept-languages header to decide what locale to display in - not sure
if B2G will have a setting screen to change right right now, but you
could download a desktop build, set up a gaia profile and try there. :)

Robert Kaiser

Fjoerfoks

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Jul 30, 2012, 8:43:20 AM7/30/12
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Hi Staś,

What I would like to see is an extensive tutorial for windows to create
desktop builds
as a FirefoxOS for Dummy's.
The current explanations are a bit short (e.g. git clone on windows, how?)
and expect people to have a high basic knowledge.

Kind regards,
Wim

Michael Bauer

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Jul 30, 2012, 9:00:06 AM7/30/12
to dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
I'd love to be able to compete in Olympic fencing too... alas... ;)

Michael

30/07/2012 13:40, sgrìobh Robert Kaiser:

Axel Hecht

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Jul 30, 2012, 9:25:19 AM7/30/12
to
On 30.07.12 14:43, Fjoerfoks wrote:
> Hi Staś,
>
> What I would like to see is an extensive tutorial for windows to create
> desktop builds
> as a FirefoxOS for Dummy's.
> The current explanations are a bit short (e.g. git clone on windows, how?)
> and expect people to have a high basic knowledge.
>

I'm afraid you shouldn't expect things to work out for non-technical
people any time soon. This is a product we haven't even shipped yet
once, things will be rough to the extent that technical folks can get
them done, but will fail without retrying once or twice. Just like I
failed the first time around.

This is to be expected, we should invest in getting this thing working
for technical folks for now, and then make it easier.

Axel

Axel Hecht

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Jul 30, 2012, 9:29:15 AM7/30/12
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There's no http server involved for the installed apps, thus http
headers won't happen.

I don't expect a per-app locale selection to happen in the first
iteration, and I expect things to be interesting if we wanted per app
locale selection.

Technical detail: navigator.locale is what we're using, IIRC, and that's
coming from the first value of the accept-lang pref these days. To make
that mod-able, we'd need a per-domain value of that pref (assuming that
even local apps have logical domains associated with them), which likely
implies changes in places that currently don't have anything to do with
it. That's completely independent of the UX for switching the language,
no idea how'd that work.

Axel
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