Can LibO be Customised to be Downloaded in a Native Language?

l10n
#1

Hi,

This applies to downloading Windows versions.

I find that English is used as the default language even for builds that
are downloaded from native language sites -- in my case, from
http://ta.libreoffice.org . The users are expected to do a customised
installation where they need to select the UI language. This doesn't seem
right to me, and doesn't give a seem-less user experience.

I wonder why the native language is not provided as the default language?
After all we have translated all the relevant strings in Pootle. What is
the issue here? Is there something that the Tamil L10N team should do?

Thanks for your assistance.
-e.

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
It's English (US) too. If i want English (GB) or anywhere else then i have
to configure LibreOffice even though i specifically downloaded a non-US
one.

Also it seems difficult to get LibreOffice in anything other than English
(US) on Gnu&Linux too. Well, maybe not difficult for people on these
mailing-lists but anything that is not the default is too difficult for
most wide-eyed-end-users.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

The installer isn't in English, it's multilingual. And it should select the
system language by default (this definitely works for Czech language). If
it doesn't work for you languages, it's either a bug, or the translation
isn't complete enough, and it was decided not to use it by default.

#4

Wow. So if you're lucky enough to be among the 107 locale for which Win 8 (for those who have Win 8 of course, Win XP still has a 25% market share) has a langpack or the 55 or so on Ubuntu (of course that does not automatically translate into LO actually being offered in all those languages as I recently had to discover with Scottish Gaelic) - or the disgraceful number of locales on OSX, you're covered. Even if I just add them up, that amounts to 2.7% of the world's languages being covered by this approach. Anyone else has to rely on the end user *guessing* that they have to run a custom install.

I like LO but I promote it through gritted teeth because the install and update process continues to be a disgrace.

Elanjelian, the workaround we're currently using is not to use the default download page but a customised page (http://gd.libreoffice.org/faigh-greim-air/) where we tell users BEFORE they reach the download button that they have to follow this unintuitive path through Custom Installation. It would probably work for your language too.

Michael

04/08/2014 17:29, sgrìobh khagaroth:

#5

Hi,

Also it seems difficult to get LibreOffice in anything other than English
(US) on Gnu&Linux too. Well, maybe not difficult for people on these
mailing-lists but anything that is not the default is too difficult for
most wide-eyed-end-users.

I agree. Yesterday, we launched LibreOffice (Tamil) in Malaysia, and as
part of the launch we demonstrated how easily the product could be
downloaded and installed. But the first thing we have to do is, apologise
for the English!

The old-timers may recall that OOo presented the installation screens in
the respective native languages.

Best, -e.

#6

Hi,

The installer isn't in English, it's multilingual. And it should select
the system language by default (this definitely works for Czech language).
If it doesn't work for you languages, it's either a bug, or the translation
isn't complete enough, and it was decided not to use it by default.

This selecting system language doesn't always work for 'minority'
languages. Largely because the support for these languages in the system
could be so poor or buggy or non-existent that the users may not have set
them as the default.

My point is this: if the end-user were to download from the main LibO site,
then, yes, it should go for the system language. But if the user had
already made the choice by going to a native language site and downloading
a native language pack, then to reimpose English on the user is, well,
not-well-thought-through, I fear.

Cheers, -e.

#7

Hi :slight_smile:
I think it's more accidental than disgraceful. Obviously not everything is
ideal yet! but there is a strong feeling of communities and individuals
working together towards making things better and better. Also when you
really think about what the alternatives do then it often is LO that is
better.

All teams (except maybe devs on Writer and Calc) are woefully tiny and yet
they keep on producing really great work.

I feel like i am only asking for a bit of icing on the cake, but then
English(US) is very close to English (UK) so being stuck in the wrong one
for a little while is barely noticeable.

Plus i think that Khagaroth and Micheal might have just solved my problem
in this area. The question is whether it helps Elanjelian.

Good luck, thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#8

Hi,

Wow. So if you're lucky enough to be among the 107 locale for which
Win 8 (for those who have Win 8 of course, Win XP still has a 25%
market share) has a langpack or the 55 or so on Ubuntu (of course that
does not automatically translate into LO actually being offered in all
those languages as I recently had to discover with Scottish Gaelic) -
or the disgraceful number of locales on OSX, you're covered. Even if I
just add them up, that amounts to 2.7% of the world's languages being
covered by this approach. Anyone else has to rely on the end user
*guessing* that they have to run a custom install.

I like LO but I promote it through gritted teeth because the install
and update process continues to be a disgrace.

Elanjelian, the workaround we're currently using is not to use the
default download page but a customised page
(http://gd.libreoffice.org/faigh-greim-air/) where we tell users
BEFORE they reach the download button that they have to follow this
unintuitive path through Custom Installation. It would probably work
for your language too.

perhaps a better option would be to present the user with a "please
select your installation language" dialog as the first step of setup,
and adjust the list of automatically selected locales based on that
choice. Not sure if it is possible with the msi-based installer though.

Rimas

#9

Hi Michael, *,

[...]
Elanjelian, the workaround we're currently using is not to use the default
download page but a customised page
(http://gd.libreoffice.org/faigh-greim-air/) where we tell users BEFORE they
reach the download button that they have to follow this unintuitive path
through Custom Installation. It would probably work for your language too.

No need to create a separate page for that - you can add your notes at
the top of the actual download page as well, just like for the
old-style one that you use.

If you have practical ideas on how to improve this, without having to
provide 100 different installers, then please shoot...

ciao
Christian

#10

Hi:

Please confirm what I did understand from the discussion:

- the installer may be triggered via some options at lunch-time to use a
different language from default (which is en-US)
- for some languages on Windows the OS is able to use such triggering
- for "minor" languages on Windows this triggering does not take place,
installer start with defaults
- a manual start from command-line on Windows could inform the installer
(msiexec /i LibOxxxxx.msi /<someLibO-option> ) about the UI install
language
- it would be possible to give to users such infos, whith motivation:
"Windows language support is smaler than LibO language support".

diego

* Thanks to everybody for smooth and clear discussions over the many
subjects, it is a pleasure to read and follow them, learning always a bit
more.

Yes. After all, we are about the people, right? -e.

#11

Just filed a bug after some off list suggestions.
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82184

It may be accidental and I know projects like LO are always short of folk but it's inexcusable. It stumps new/inexperienced users (i.e. most) at a point before they even use the program. In terms of usability, it's like hiding the Save button three layers down in the UI menu. It should have been fixed as a matter of priority when LO first forked, even before cleaning code. It's not icing.

Michael

05/08/2014 00:29, sgrìobh Tom Davies:

#12

Hi

Yeah... you may find this thread 'helpful' or at least illuminating:
https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/l10n/msg07381.html

Michael

05/08/2014 02:22, sgrìobh Elanjelian Venugopal:

#13

Þann þri 5.ágú 2014 07:19, skrifaði Rimas Kudelis:

Hi,

Wow. So if you're lucky enough to be among the 107 locale for which
Win 8 (for those who have Win 8 of course, Win XP still has a 25%
market share) has a langpack or the 55 or so on Ubuntu (of course that
does not automatically translate into LO actually being offered in all
those languages as I recently had to discover with Scottish Gaelic) -
or the disgraceful number of locales on OSX, you're covered. Even if I
just add them up, that amounts to 2.7% of the world's languages being
covered by this approach. Anyone else has to rely on the end user
*guessing* that they have to run a custom install.

I like LO but I promote it through gritted teeth because the install
and update process continues to be a disgrace.

Elanjelian, the workaround we're currently using is not to use the
default download page but a customised page
(http://gd.libreoffice.org/faigh-greim-air/) where we tell users
BEFORE they reach the download button that they have to follow this
unintuitive path through Custom Installation. It would probably work
for your language too.

perhaps a better option would be to present the user with a "please
select your installation language" dialog as the first step of setup,
and adjust the list of automatically selected locales based on that
choice. Not sure if it is possible with the msi-based installer though.

Rimas

+1

Sorry, but we are having this discussion every year:
<http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-l10n-Localisation-gone-wild-td4042744.html>

Definitely it would be more polite starting the installer with a language-selection box. If you read the thread above, you'll see that even asking in English is no sufficent; shouldn't the language names be localised too? And how about graphical imagery for those who don't understand any English at all?

Also, there may be a variety of reasons why the system/user locale can't be the desired UI-locale.

In bugzilla for Windows Installer I could only find the vaguely-related "Bug 50509 - Language selection is not possible with silent install", there are some useful pointers.

And then there's "Bug 41884 - [Task] Windows Installer Most Annoying Bugs"

So, how about filing a bugzilla entry instead of repeating history?

Best regards,
Sveinn í Felli

#14

A bug report is the way to go.
However, the content of this bug report is quite passive aggressive. It
includes many separate issues while each bug report normally covers a
single issue. Frankly, it does not make it easy to attract a developer to
work on this.
This localization issue is important and it has to be dealt with properly.

Specifically,
1. Bug reports about the installation can be found at
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/buglist.cgi?product=LibreOffice&component=Installation&resolution=---

2. The issue about language sorting already has a bug report, at
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=81786
Most probably, the sorting is based on the language codes ("de" for
German, etc).
If you notice from the above bug report, the reporter says

"In German locale it is also unsorted. 'Weißrussisch' comes before
'Bulgarisch'."

Well, the language code for Belarus is "be" and for Bulgaria is "bg".
Therefore, the sorting currently is probably by language code.
The language codes and language names are probably stored in a data
structure that makes it easy to change the sorting from language code to
language name.
It is probably a one-line code change and it is something that we can
easily try ourselves and produce a patch!

3. There is another bug report, "Default Installer Language",
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63827
The desktop session of the user has some system locale, and the installer
picks the system locale to show messages in the installer.
If a user wants a specific other language, they should change the operating
system settings so their desktop session has a different locale (every
operating system has a way to change these).
In the bug report, Andras Timar mentions that, once the Installer has
started in a specific language, then it is not possible to switch the
messages of the installer in another language.
I can think of a few workarounds, such as an additional multilingual
installer, that offers to select the installer language and then will run
the normal installer with our selected language settings.
Any workaround requires some thinking so as not to interfere with the
common case where we want the language to be autodetected.

4. For some cases it might be beneficial to build installation packages
that show messages in a specific language only.
That is, create installers that have the language hard-coded in them, which
also include all relevant material for a language (spelling, etc).
It is possible to do such a thing. That is, set up the software building
environment that will automatically build installation packages for
specific languages.

Simos

#15

So shoot me for being somewhat frustrated that several years down the line this is still an issue and that every times it comes up, it gets sidelined for some odd reason. I'm not Mother Theresa.

If I filed the bug incorrectly and if people feel that it should be worded differently, by all means close the one I filed and refile it differently. The reason they're together is that from the user point, it's an interconnected issue. That's the only reason it's filed as one bug.

Michael

05/08/2014 14:10, sgrìobh Simos Xenitellis: