Firefox Mobile shipping just multi-locale now

[Axel Hecht]

Hi,

we're going to ship the first release of the new native UI Firefox
mobile today.

We're only going to ship the multi-locale build, though. That contains
the following locales:

cs da de es-ES fi fr ja ko it nb-NO nl pl pt-BR pt-PT ru

For the many other localizations, we didn't get the OK from product yet
to actually ship them. Both the install experience and the update
experience for the single-locale builds are quite sad, and it's not
clear we can do a lot about that.

chofmann and I don't think we've raised all arguments yet.

As a side note, I will go through the current sign-offs and review them.
That's to prepare our arguments and doesn't indicate that we've got the
OK to actually ship them.

Axel

[chris hofmann]

Just to add a bit.

We don't have too many good options here.

One option is to place all the local builds in the store, but that will
probably lead to general confusion when people search for firefox in the
google play store and get a list of 35-40 different possibilities, and
the second option is create our own download page hosted on mozilla
similar to our all.html for desktop (
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html ) but this listing would
be for mobile.

The problem with the second option is that it requires users to set the
"Applications | Unknown Sources" check box on Android settings to allow
the installation to happen. We could have the mobile version of the
all.html page explain this, but it still might be a significant barrier
to installation.

Are there other ideas that anyone might have we should be exploring?
How does the second option sound?

-chofmann

> _______________________________________________
> dev-l10n mailing list
> dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-l10n

[Fjoerfoks]

What's the limit of locales into 1 app?
Can we put multiple Firefox-apps into the store with additional locales?

Wim

2012/6/26 chris hofmann <chof...@meer.net>

>
> Just to add a bit.
>
> We don't have too many good options here.
>
> One option is to place all the local builds in the store, but that will
> probably lead to general confusion when people search for firefox in the
> google play store and get a list of 35-40 different possibilities, and the
> second option is create our own download page hosted on mozilla similar to

> our all.html for desktop ( https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/**
> firefox/all.html <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html> ) but

> this listing would be for mobile.
>
> The problem with the second option is that it requires users to set the
> "Applications | Unknown Sources" check box on Android settings to allow the
> installation to happen. We could have the mobile version of the all.html
> page explain this, but it still might be a significant barrier to
> installation.
>
> Are there other ideas that anyone might have we should be exploring? How
> does the second option sound?
>
> -chofmann
>
>
> On 6/26/12 4:40 AM, Axel Hecht wrote:
>

>> ______________________________**_________________
>> dev-l10n mailing list
>> dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/dev-l10n<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-l10n>
>>
>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> dev-l10n mailing list
> dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
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>

[Toni Hermoso Pulido]

Hello,

just for being sure, is auto-update working in single-locale builds ?
Until a better idea, I think second option is better than nothing.

My 2 cents,

2012/6/26 chris hofmann <chof...@meer.net>:
>
> Just to add a bit.
>
> We don't have too many good options here.
>
> One option is to place all the local builds in the store, but that will
> probably lead to general confusion when people search for firefox in the
> google play store and get a list of 35-40 different possibilities, and the
> second option is create our own download page hosted on mozilla similar to

> our all.html for desktop ( https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html )

> but this listing would be for mobile.
>
> The problem with the second option is that it requires users to set the
> "Applications | Unknown Sources" check box on Android settings to allow the
> installation to happen.  We could have the mobile version of the all.html
> page explain this, but it still might be a significant barrier to
> installation.
>
> Are there other ideas that anyone might have we should be exploring?   How
> does the second option sound?
>
> -chofmann
>
>
> On 6/26/12 4:40 AM, Axel Hecht wrote:
>>

--
Toni Hermoso Pulido
http://www.cau.cat

[Peter Pin-Guang Chen]

Is it possible to offer standalone langpacks, let users install from market?
I've seen some SMS app[1] and Launchers[2] using this way to add some more
theme, or language packs.

If it's not possible to do this, +1 for the second option.

[1]
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handcent.lang.nextsms.zh_tw
[2]
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gau.go.launcherex.theme.classic

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Pin-Guang Chen (petercpg)
Chinese (Traditional) [zh-TW] Localization Project Coordinator
Mozilla Taiwan Community (MozTW) http://moztw.org

2012/6/26 chris hofmann <chof...@meer.net>

>
> Just to add a bit.
>
> We don't have too many good options here.
>
> One option is to place all the local builds in the store, but that will
> probably lead to general confusion when people search for firefox in the
> google play store and get a list of 35-40 different possibilities, and the
> second option is create our own download page hosted on mozilla similar to

> our all.html for desktop ( https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/**
> firefox/all.html <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html> ) but

> this listing would be for mobile.
>
> The problem with the second option is that it requires users to set the
> "Applications | Unknown Sources" check box on Android settings to allow the
> installation to happen. We could have the mobile version of the all.html
> page explain this, but it still might be a significant barrier to
> installation.
>
> Are there other ideas that anyone might have we should be exploring? How
> does the second option sound?
>
> -chofmann
>
>
> On 6/26/12 4:40 AM, Axel Hecht wrote:
>

[fi...@akerbeltz.org]

Apart from the other suggestions (I like the langpack idea by the way) how about a link from the multi-locale site on marketplace to a page on mozilla to "Other languages"?
Michael
------------------

[Vito Smolej]

+1

[Vito Smolej]

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 5:20:45 PM UTC+2, fi...@akerbeltz.org wrote:

+1

[chris hofmann]

If we have several multi-locale packs on the google play store how do we
keep people from searching for and downloading the wrong pack.

It doesn't appear there are good ways to identify which locales are part
of which packs.

-chofmann

[Sander Lepik]

26.06.2012 20:43, chris hofmann kirjutas:
> On 6/26/12 10:36 AM, Vito Smolej wrote:

> If we have several multi-locale packs on the google play store how do we keep people from
> searching for and downloading the wrong pack.
>
> It doesn't appear there are good ways to identify which locales are part of which packs.

Mageia has done that with regions: http://www.mageia.org/en/downloads/ Description could
list all supported languages in that apk. And all builds contain English as one option.
I'm not saying it's easy but still better than nothing..

--
Sander

[Vito Smolej]

Hi Chris

Oh well, lets grasp for straws ... to have a locale switcher built in, with some intelligence to know where to get it from? ...

(This is a) mighty late and b) sign of my ignorance of the subject, I am just extrapolating from desktop Firefox)

Regards

Vito

[Vito Smolej]

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 7:43:57 PM UTC+2, chris hofmann wrote:

[Axel Hecht]

On 26.06.12 17:07, Peter Pin-Guang Chen wrote:
> Is it possible to offer standalone langpacks, let users install from market?
> I've seen some SMS app[1] and Launchers[2] using this way to add some more
> theme, or language packs.
>
> If it's not possible to do this, +1 for the second option.

Do you have docs on how to do that? All I've found so far doesn't allow
language packs with the built-in localization scheme of android apps.

Axel

[Mihovil Stanic]

Option 1.
Swiftkey -
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchtype.swiftkey.phone.trial
It has "Language & layouts" option in Setting menu. When you click it
you get all languages you can install. It's not UI language, it's
keyboard language, but I think that doesn't matter.
Languages aren't hosted on Google Play, I guess it's direct download
from their servers.

Option 2.
GO LauncherEX Croatian language -
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gau.go.launcherex.language.hr
SlideIT Croatian Pack -
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dasur.language.cro.pack

You host it as standalone app on Google Play and launch that link from
FF Mobile settings when user chooses desired language.
Links aren't changing so you will have no problems in linking it from
Settings / Language screen.

Are there any minuses for this aproach?

Best regards,
Mihovil

[Axel Hecht]

Well it's hard to tell what their actual approach is.

To detail on the technical problem, mentioned class names are similar,
but didn't bother looking up each:

The only way we found to get fast startup is to use the native java
stack of android, as that's the infrastructure set up for any process
android creates.

The native java stack uses two codepaths to get localized strings into
the layouts, which are stored as binary XML: The LayoutInflator and the
MenuInflator, which both use numeric IDs in the binary XML to look up
strings in a ResourceTable. That's some 16bit strings stuff having all
locales in it, in some dupe-resolving way. Feels like mork, for the old
greyhounds of you.

An alternative approach to l10n must not regress our startup time, so
we'd be interested if anyone had algorithms we can use (license wise)
that open up that cage.

Axel