Flock | the social web browser

L10n:Home Page

(Redirected from L10n:Home page)

Contents

[edit] Welcome to Flock’s Localization Program!

Translating Flock is easy, fun and rewarding. You don’t have to be a developer, or have any special software to provide assistance. We are looking to you to help us translate our core browser in order to provide the best possible user experience in your language. Check out our supported locales here: http://flock.com/versions. It's our goal to provide Flock in multiple languages so that we can continue to support and grow our international community.

Thank you,

Bryan Hudson Flock L10n Project Manager

[edit] What is Localization?

Localization, also referred to as "L10n" for short, is simply, the process of translating the Flock Browser into a desired language. There are many components to Flock that need to be considered in order to have a complete "translated" experience. Listed below are the main components that need translation.

  • menus
  • dialog boxes
  • labels
  • font, character encodings
  • dictionaries
  • default search engine


Localization also covers customizing the default application settings to match the regional culture, habits, and (in case of a web application) links to default websites used in the region. We recognize the importance of providing Flock in multiple languages so that we can continue to support our international community. You don't need any coding skills, and you don't need deep knowledge of Mozilla. What you need are fluency in the target language, linguistic knowledge, and a text editor with Unicode support.

[edit] Additional Information

Sample guidelines in paper writing services in an easiest way.

[edit] New Features In Flock 2.5.3 Codename (Kea)

  • Priority Bug Fixes
  • Latest FF3 Security Patch 3.0.13
  • Twitter Enhancements
  • Bebo Service Integration
  • Flock Cast Integration ("one-click" Broadcast your activities to Facebook).

[edit] Let's Get Started! There are 5 Steps to successfully translate a Locale

[edit] image:step_1.png

Please refer to Flocks L10n Team. If a team already exists, and you're willing to help, please contact Bryan Hudson and he will add you to the team and the L10n Mailing List. It is important to be a part of the mailing list since much of the communication happens on this channel. If the locale does not exsist than please contact Bryan Hudson. I will add the new locale and provide you futher instructions on how to get started.

[edit] Helpful Information:

  • Locale Naming Policy is well described on Mozilla's Wiki in document Simple Locale Names.
  • Summary: you should try to use the most general locale name as possible. If you translate to French, you should use fr locale name. If there are several different countries using some version of French, the locale name for such country should be fr-CA (while the main French locale stays fr). In some rare cases, you will want to add a dialect suffix.
  • You can also take a look at the current Mozilla Firefox locale teams. Since a lot of l10n strings are common to Gecko and Flock (since Flock uses the Gecko toolkit), you will want to cooperate with a Firefox team if one exists.
  • Check to see if a locale already exsists via Firefox: Firefox Localization Team . It will be a lot easier if you'd decide to reuse Firefox localization. We also made it possible to reuse Firefox localization and overwrite files that you want translate on your own (for consistency or quality reasons), or you can localize everything from the scratch. Here you can view Fx l10n.

[edit] Current Locales (updated March 5/09)

image:2.0.3_locales.png

1:20:30 AM 122.124.158.172 Host blocked for 5 min SCAN (14340, 64776, 32347, 10101, 13324, 33475)

[edit] image:step_2.png

[edit] Best Practice:

If you have a choice to follow directly the words from en-US version, or to make it easier to understand for users, you should follow the latter, but watch out. In the future it could lead to some troubles. For example in Polish we had a real problem to translate the word "tabs". We chose to use a word "panels", but later we found a big problem to translate "sidebar" which should use the word "panel" in Polish. Because we already used "panels" for tabs, we had a problem to switch. (we finally switched just before Firefox 1.5 to the word "cards" for tabs). You must think twice to avoid future collisions when you diverge from original words.

As you might notice Flock is not the first application in the world. If you're not from some very exotic country there probably are other applications in your language around. There are probably some internet users who have some common words. You must not ignore them. You must not try to reinvent the wheel. It's really a rare case when the common routines are bad and you need to force usage of new words. It's always a pain for users, and will make product adoption harder. You should try to avoid it wherever possible.

[edit] Getting the Necessary Flock Files Via SVN:

Flock uses SVN repository to track all translation changes. Since Flock stores all localizations in SVN (Web View) you can simply get SVN account for yourself, and manage your localization on your own. With SVN access you can test your localization on your own.

[edit] 2. Subversion (SVN) Checkin / Checkout::

1. URL to SVN Checkin and Checkout: svn://svn.l10n.flock.com/l10n
2. URL to View L10n Source: http://svn-mirror.l10n.flock.com/

  • Flock uses Subversion (SVN) for its revision control system.
  • You need to have SVN Client for your platform. (If you have perl on your machine, you also should download compare-locales.pl script. It will allow you to cross check your localization with english version for missing entities.)
  • Getting SVN access. In order to be able to write into repository, you need to get SVN account:
  1. Please File a bug here: Flocks Bugzilla
  2. For the [Product] select "Flock"
  3. For the [Component] select "Internationalization"
  4. In the [Bug Summary] please make sure you add this.("Localization account for ab-CD; email@domain.tld", indicating the nickname you'd want to use)
  5. Create a directory in your hard drive, and inside create en-US and your_locale_name dirs. You will then need to get the en-US l10n files.

[edit] What type of environment do you have?

A. No Flock Environment:

  1. Pull Flock L10n Trunk: svn co svn://svn.l10n.flock.com/l10n
  2. Pull en-US Flock from Kea branch which is 100% localization ready:
  • svn co svn://svn-mirror.flock.com/master/flock/branches/kea/mozilla/flock/locales
  1. Now you can start: If there will be any changes before Flock l10n release, there will be message sent to l10n maillist, and update of this wiki

B. Flock Environment (Advanced)

  1. Build Flock using FBuild.
  2. Then get SVN access, and using locale_set script choose your locale (locale_set ab_CD - if there is no locale directory in trunk, you need to add it first). Then, erase $o/dist/bin directory and rebuild fbuild.sh. Once it's ready, you have flock in your lanuage.
  3. Now, you can edit $m/../l10n/ directory, write updates to svn, and rebuild Flock with updated locales by fbuild.sh.
  4. locale_set not only pulled Flock localization but also Firefox localization for your locale. It means, that beside of $m/../l10n/ab-CD/flock directory which you need to localize, there's also a lot of Firefox directories pulled from CVS. You can overwrite any of those files and add them to SVN to make Flock use your version of those files instead of original ones.

[edit] image:step_3.png

Flock is a Gecko platform based applications stores language entities in two forms:

  1. One is a .properties Java-like file.
  2. Another is XML based .dtd file. Properties files looks like:

Much more often, you will work with .dtd files. To get more info you can read Wikipedia entry about DTD. To work with it, you should know a bit about XML. I said a bit, don't scream yet :)

  • Example: (the required translation is seen here in bold) 
blog.properties
1 flock.blog.metadata.selectPost = Select a post…

tabbrowser.dtd
1 <!ENTITY bookmarkAllTabs.label Favorite All Tabs…>


So, somewhere in am-main.xul inside the Flock UI, some developer wants to display some text. He adds something like this and adds new entity in some .dtd file. Your role is to translate the value of this entity into your language.

[edit] .dtd and .properties Files that need to be translated:


  • Searchplugins: http://lxr.flock.com/source/flock/mozilla/flock/locales/en-US/searchplugins/
    • Flock en-US includes 10 searchplugins (listed below). Localizers are requested to translate the names of the search engines unless there is no locale version or specifically prohibited by the engine's terms of service. Localizers are also encouraged to offer suggestions for "relevant" searchplugins for their specific locale. If you have any questions, please contact Bryan Hudson.
    • IMPORTANT: When you have completed the translation of each file in the Chrome folder, please update the L10n 2.X Release Checklist.
      • If we do not have the appropriate affiliate codes from our supported search services (Yahoo!, Ask, Amazon, Ebay) we will Always default to en-US for that given service. Flock has default settings for "Searchplugin Services" and "Searchplugin Order". Please Translate where applicable.
      • When you have completed the translation of the searchplugins xml files:
  1. Please email Bruno Calvignac with Subject: "Searchplugin ab-CD completed for review".
  2. Your searchplugin xml files will be reviewed and then added to the flock main repository.
  3. If you need help with this please contact Bruno Calvignac or Bryan Hudson


  1. amazondotcom.xml
  2. askcom.xml
  3. digg.xml
  4. ebay.xml
  5. google.xml
  6. list.txt
  7. technorati.xml
  8. wikipedia.xml
  9. wink-people.xml
  10. yahoo.xml
  • Web Page Requirements
    • Note: Flock.com is not localizable at this time (not in SVN). We rely on Google Docs (shared) to complete web page translations. We are using google docs for all html translations. This will allow localizers a more efficient and reliable way to track the ongoing localization process of our web translation content.
  • There are three main html pages that need to be translated with the release of 2.X:
  1. Updates Page.
  2. Release Notes Page.
  3. Tune Up Page.


  • Updates Page (when a user has successfully upgraded to Flock 2.X).
    • We will be tracking the translation of the "Updates Page" via Google Docs. This will allow each localizer to contribute and track the changes. **IMPORTANT: When you have completed the translation of each file in the Chrome folder, please update the L10n 2.X Release Checklist.
  • Release Notes Page (the release notes contain known issues that users should be aware of )
    • We will be tracking the translation of the "Release Notes" pages via Google Docs. This will allow each localizer to contribute and track the changes.
    • IMPORTANT: When you have completed the translation of each file in the Chrome folder, please update the L10n 2.X Release Checklist.
  • Tune Up Page
    • We will be tracking the translation of the "Tune Up Page" pages via Google Docs. This will allow each localizer to contribute and track the changes.
    • IMPORTANT: When you have completed the translation of each file in the Chrome folder, please update the L10n 2.X Release Checklist.

[edit] image:step_4.png

  • When you have started to translate it is important to track your progress. Therefore, a special Stats Page was developed that returns translation results related to your locale.
    • Green = Translation is 100% complete with no errors, Congratulations!
    • Yellow = There are translation errors and/or is not complete.
    • Red = There are many errors and/or translations that have not been complete with you locale. Translation is out of sync.
    • Stats Page URL: http://l10n.splewako.com/flock-dashboard/
    • Check if it is green on Stats Page (for kea branch) if it is not - check errors simply by clicking on language code and correct them
    • IMPORTANT: When you have completed the translations, please update the L10n 2.X Release Checklist.

[edit] image:step_5.png

  • You can pull SVN directory, and build Flock on your own with your localization in order to test its quality. For instructions about how to build Flock, you will need to know how to use Fbuild (Advanced method).
  • TEST, TEST, TEST...
    • Give your localization to friends.
    • Make sure your translations are complete!
    • Test the UI, and make sure everything looks fine.
  • When you feel confident that your locale is ready to release:
  1. Update the L10n Release Checklist under "L10n QA" (1 = completed)
  2. Please send an email to Bryan Hudson informing that you have completed your QA.
  • IMPORTANT:
    • All locales are tested by our Flock QA Engineering team. Once we have approval from our QA team, we then push each locale to flock.com/versions for final release.

[edit] Flock Contact Information

  • If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Bryan Hudson anytime.
  • Bryan Hudson - Project Manager for L10n
    • irc://irc.flock.com/#l10n
    • email: bryan [at] flock [dot] com
    • office: +1.250.995.0145
    • mobile: +1.250.514.9463
    • skype: phatbuddhaz
    • aim: phatbuddhaz
  • Bruno Calvignac - Lead Flock Engineer (L10n)
    • email: bruno [at] flock [dot] com

[edit] Localization Teams

[edit] Localization Archives

Retrieved from "http://wiki.flock.com/wiki/L10n:Home_Page"