Closed Bug 463441 Opened 16 years ago Closed 16 years ago

[vi] Search engine setup for Firefox 3.1 for Vietnamese.

Categories

(Mozilla Localizations :: vi / Vietnamese, defect)

Product:
Mozilla Localizations
Component:
vi / Vietnamese
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: Pike, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: fixed1.9.1)

Attachments

(4 files, 10 obsolete files)

5giay.vn OpenSearch plugin
5.40 KB, application/xml
Details
Baamboo Tra từ OpenSearch plugin
1.67 KB, application/opensearchdescription+xml
Details
VDict.com OpenSearch plugin
1.48 KB, application/xml
Details
searchplugins.patch
24.75 KB, patch
stas
: review+
Details | Diff | Splinter Review 
We want to ship Firefox 3.1 a good list of search engines for Vietnamese. 

We're going to work towards this in three phases. First, the localization team and Stas (Stas Malolepszy) will look at the market for the language and come up with a good set of search providers. Hung, we'll need your input on this, the guidelines for making recommendations are on http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox_web_services_guidelines. 

For en-US, we currently use this set, to which we can fall back in the case of lacking localized alternatives:
Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Answers, CC, eBay, Wikipedia

After we decided on a particular search engine, Stas will contact the owner and ask for permission, and for specifics like proper search flags. undefined, we'll likely need your help to at least get the contact information.

Once we have a specification on what the searchengines for Vietnamese should look like, the localization team and Stas will work on an implementation on that. This should happen by the localization team creating and attaching patches for the desired changes, and requesting review from Stas. After a successful review, the localization team will land them.

Please don't commit any modifications in l10n/vi/browser/searchplugins to the cvs repository without a patch reviewed by Stas, Axel or someone else appointed by Stas or SethB. The data here is sensitive to users and our search partners, thus the extra care here.
Of that list, Google has both a version for Vietnam (http://www.google.com.vn/ ) and a Vietnamese-language version (http://www.google.com/intl/vi/ ); Yahoo! has a portal for Vietnam (http://vn.yahoo.com/ ); and Wikipedia has a Vietnamese-language version (http://vi.wikipedia.org/ ).

Other services to look into are Baamboo (http://www.baamboo.com/ ), Xa lộ (http://xalo.vn/ ), and VDict (http://vdict.com/ ).
Cảm ơn Minh.

Minh already told you what I want to tell. However, though Yahoo is popular in Vietnam (everyone who has internet access usually has Y!Mail account as well), people rarely use Y!Search. So should we promote a Vietnamese search engine instead? As far as I know, XaLo seems good, but I don't know much about the technology, so I don't know if the other search engines are better, may I have your comment on this, Minh?
(Some other search sites:
Socbay (http://www.socbay.com/)
Vietica (http://www.vietica.com/)
7Sac (http://www.7sac.com/)
TimNhanh (http://www.timnhanh.com/)
Zing Search (http://search.zing.vn/) )


About the others:
1) E-commerce sites.
There are two sites with highest traffic, one is mainly used by the Southerners (5giay.vn), the other is mainly used by the Northerners (Muare.vn). Both are organized as forums.
a)On Muare.vn, you dont need to register to search products. 
b)But on 5giay.vn, a registered account is required before you can search. However, Socbay's "Listings Search" give results from 5giay. Then should we use 5giay.vn or Socbay Listings Search ?
(Here are some other e-commerce sites, hope Minh could help me choose the good one:
http://www.123mua.com.vn
http://www.rongbay.com
http://www.chodientu.vn (partner of eBay.vn, seems not so good as they should be)
http://xalo.vn/classified.html
http://www.chophien.com
http://www.raovat.vn
http://www.123raovat.com
http://www.raovat123.com )

2) Answers.
tratu.baamboo.com : good online dictionary, there's a small Q&A box on the page allows people to submit questions, and they also made a FF extension.

3) CreativeCommons.
vietnamworks.com.vn (best jobs search site, i think it's helpful for Vietnamese)
XaLộ is the former Vinaseek, which was well-known in Vietnam a while back. I'm not sure how it stacks up to the newer services. To be honest, I have no idea which of the e-commerce sites is best in Vietnam, since I'm in the U.S.

If we go off Alexa ratings, then Google Việt Nam and Zing would be the top choices by far. (I agree that Yahoo! Search isn't used much.) But Alexa can be pretty inaccurate, so I'll ask some others to comment here.

Creative Commons Search is a search engine for free content / open source webpages, photos, etc. I don't think we should replace that with a job search site. (vietnamworks.com.vn could go on the Getting Started page instead.)
As far as I know, only Xalo, Socbay and Vietica have "true" search engines. Zing is powered by Vietica and its rank on Alexa is, yeah, inaccurate. (However, we might need to consider Alexa rank when we make our choice.)

If possible, we need someone who could give some tests to those sites, and could tell us whether those search engines are good or not. This should applies to our choice of e-commerce sites as well. Or we'll simply choose what we like.

About Creative Commons, I couldn't find any alternatives for Vietnam. And the Firefox guidelines page says: "Specific interest search - Where user are using popular search engine's to search more specific areas of interest that are very popular in your language or locale." That's why I suggested the most helpful site I thought of - Vietnamworks allows us to search jobs ("specific areas") and is "very popular" in Vietnam as well. Or maybe we should use the above search sites - they all allow us to search things in "specific areas"?
1. Vietnamworks.com.vn is a job-seeking site, not a CC search, I suggest we keep the CC site for CC search.
2. About xalo, socbay,... do you mean it is a general-purpose search engine? As a former employee of Vietica, I know that Vietica has it own search engine core, *but* they just search on music, jobs and highlighted news, not a general-purpose like Google or Y! Search.
It always seemed to me that Creative Commons Search was added not because it's very popular -- it isn't -- but because it's an open source thing like Firefox.

According to http://creativecommons.org/international/ , Creative Commons is in the process of adding Vietnam as one of its international license jurisdictions (so, CC licenses specifically for Vietnam). That won't necessarily mean a localized search engine right away, but it would make CC more useful for Vietnamese-speaking users.
To provide some additional perspective, Mozilla has shipped CC search and Wikipedia search as default in Firefox 3.0 for all languages (Axel, please correct me if I am wrong.)  If there isn't a good reason to take these defaults out, I believe we would prefer to keep them in as a global default.  Wikipedia has Vietnamese already and if CC is planning to launch in Vietnam soon then there's that to look forward to as well.
I should admit that I think most users of Vietnamese localized version of Firefox would be average users. In facts, in Vietnam, people have been using the English versions of Windows, Firefox and some major softwares for a long time, and they're kind of used to the terms used in the English versions (though they may not understand them clearly), so it's a little hard for them to switch to the localized versions. But I think that there are still people who want to use the Vietnamese localized version of Firefox (that's why I decided to do it): people who are new to computers; people who use an English version but dont understand the terms clearly and still want to use a localized version, etc... These people have only used the basic features of Firefox, and they haven't bothered to use the search engines included in Firefox as 4 of them are all in English. Then, why don't we choose what they can understand and feel easy to use?

Still, if the CC site doesn't have a localized version, it would be useless to the local users. Even the advanced users doesn't get used to it, in Vietnam, there hasn't been any detailed article about CC on computing magazines/newspapers. And I don't think the internationalization of its license for Vietnam would be done soon, they may take months or even 1 or 2 years, then there may be new versions of Firefox already and we may adapt CC back at that time.

My approach to localizing Firefox is from a user. My suggestion meets the criteria specified in the Firefox web services guidelines. I don't see any advantages in keeping CC at this time. So, unless it is required by Mozilla, I would not recommend it.
Yeah, I suppose it would be rather confusing for a non-English speaker regardless. But I'm still skeptical that any user would search VietnamWorks frequently enough for it to get a spot in the search box. Maybe a music search engine, like nhacso.net?
(In reply to comment #9)
> Maybe a music search engine, like nhacso.net?

Question re: nhasco.net. Is this a search engine for copyright-free music or it is basically a front-end for searching for copyrighted song online a la Baidu?  If the latter, it would be a pretty questionable addition.
Nhacso.net has been received permissions from Vietnam Music Association, they pay for their music publication. So I suggest that it's suitable (http://nhacso.net/Music/about.asp).

@Hung: Creative Commons is not familiar to Vietnamese, I agree, but it is one of the most successful free license in the world, we should spread this to Vietnamese, they may ask "what is it? Is it familiar with the one in Flickr?" and they may get used to it. Firefox is dedicated for free software culture and it should encourage the culture, doesn't it?
I have just received information from Catharina Maracke (Creative Commons International.)  She has said not to expect CC-VI to launch before Summer of 2009 at the earliest. If information changes (schedules are accelerated) I will provide new information.

@Tân Vĩnh TRẦN: this is exactly why Mozilla has CC Search as a global default even in markets where CC is not available in the dominant language of that market.
Ah uhm, I didn't mean we should use VietnamWorks, just meant we should use a
Vietnamese site instead of CC.

Nhacso.net is a branch site of the biggest IT company FPT, they ask for
permissions from the authors to allow site users listen & download songs from
nhacso. As you can see, they only have Vietnamese songs on their site. Even vn.music.yahoo.com is a partner site of Nhacso. I don't know if it's suitable, though.

@Tân: Now that should depend on Mozilla's decision. And I didnt say we should remove CC search from FF permanently, but just temporarily until there is a localized version of CC. People should understand CC before they use it, but now what could a Vietnamese know when they get onto the CC site? It seems that many languages which have their localized versions in Firefox also have localized licenses on CC, but not Vietnamese. There is no Vietnamese information on the site! Then how can you tell if a Vietnamese can fully understand the concepts of CC? They may use it to search for free-license works, and unintentionally, they may use those works for commercial purposes!
Component: Other → vi / Vietnamese
QA Contact: vietnamese.vi
On a different note, since this is the vi localization and not the vi-VN one, should we be considering Google Tiếng Việt (http://www.google.com/intl/vi/) instead of Google Việt Nam (http://www.google.com.vn/)?
Most of people using Vietnamese in their daily life is from Vietnam, IMHO, I prefer Google Việt Nam (where the search results are localized) to Google Việt Nam (just localized the interface).
May anyone from Mozilla give us your comments on this, please?
We try to stick with a single google plugin and rely on google offering the user experience they want for the language and region that users are in.

That is, we try to just ship the standard google.com plugin, which then does language detection and redirects based on geolocation and cookies.
Thanks to everybody for an excellent discussion :) Let me try to respond:

Re: general search:

As Axel explained, we usually include the universal Google plug-in and let Google handle the language detection.

For second choice, it seems that we should replace Yahoo with something that is more widely used and gives better local results: one of the suggestions was to choose xalo.vn. I gave it a try and it seemed to return good general results, so I wonder how it relates to comment 5 -- is it truly a general-search engine?


Re: e-commerce

I'm not exactly convinced by a forum-like e-commerce sites -- are these more like auctions/classifieds? And I have to admit that I dislike the idea of requiring the user to register just to browse the offers.

In comment 2, Hung mentions that Socbay pulls the data from 5giay.vn, but I think it actually does this for both 5giay.vn and Muare.vn. See here:
http://raovat.socbay.com/raovat/Result.aspx?q=laptop
Can you comment on this, please?


Re: specific interest search:

I think that apart Wikipedia, there were some really good suggestions for this group, including VDict, tratu.baamboo.com and Nhacso.net. I agree with Minh (comment 3) that Vietnamworks.com.vn would be a better candidate for the Getting Started page. I personally like the dictionary suggestion, as I can easily imagine this can improve user's experience when browsing on English websites. But I also see that many search engines offer music search, so I understand music is an important part of the web life in Vietnam. Would you agree?

On CC: we don't require shipping with CC, of course, but we like the idea of promoting this movement, as it is very much in line with what we do and think. Unless adding CC makes the list too long (say, 8 or more plugins), I'd be in favor of adding it. FYI, we did remove from a couple of locales.


And my last question: I noticed that many search boxes on Vietnamese sites let me choose between "E" and "V". I guess it has something to do with language (of the input? of results?). Would you mind explaining to me what these letters exactly mean?
(In reply to comment #18)
> Thanks to everybody for an excellent discussion :) Let me try to respond:
> 
> Re: general search:
> 
> As Axel explained, we usually include the universal Google plug-in and let
> Google handle the language detection.
> 
> For second choice, it seems that we should replace Yahoo with something that is
> more widely used and gives better local results: one of the suggestions was to
> choose xalo.vn. I gave it a try and it seemed to return good general results,
> so I wonder how it relates to comment 5 -- is it truly a general-search engine?

My understanding is that XaLo is intended to be a general search engine.

> Re: e-commerce
> 
> I'm not exactly convinced by a forum-like e-commerce sites -- are these more
> like auctions/classifieds? And I have to admit that I dislike the idea of
> requiring the user to register just to browse the offers.

They are basically classifieds websites. I think we were talking about something to take eBay's spot.

> Re: specific interest search:
> 
> I think that apart Wikipedia, there were some really good suggestions for this
> group, including VDict, tratu.baamboo.com and Nhacso.net. I agree with Minh
> (comment 3) that Vietnamworks.com.vn would be a better candidate for the
> Getting Started page. I personally like the dictionary suggestion, as I can
> easily imagine this can improve user's experience when browsing on English
> websites. But I also see that many search engines offer music search, so I
> understand music is an important part of the web life in Vietnam. Would you
> agree?

Yes. I would suggest having one of the dictionary websites take Answers.com's place, and a music search engine take Amazon's.

> And my last question: I noticed that many search boxes on Vietnamese sites let
> me choose between "E" and "V". I guess it has something to do with language (of
> the input? of results?). Would you mind explaining to me what these letters
> exactly mean?

The E/V buttons have nothing to do with results. Most Vietnamese websites provide a JavaScript-based input method editor for Vietnamese, because the writing system is a too complex for an ordinary keyboard layout to be useful, and many public computers don't have IMEs installed on the OS. (Although Vietnamese uses a Latin-based alphabet, there are around 100 combinations of letters and diacritics.)

All the sites we've mentioned here include an in-page IME. They often use different controls: for instance, Yahoo! has four buttons under the search bar that let you choose which input method to use.

For the sites that don't include IMEs, there are a few extensions that do the same for every website, including (pardon the shameless plug) AVIM (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2947).
(In reply to comment #18)
> And my last question: I noticed that many search boxes on Vietnamese sites let
> me choose between "E" and "V". I guess it has something to do with language (of
> the input? of results?). Would you mind explaining to me what these letters
> exactly mean?

Ah, I forgot to answer your question: "E" is for "English" (disable IME) and "V" is for "Vietnamese" (enable IME). When the button says "V", try typing in "duwowngdf", and you should get "đường". (That's the Telex input method; VNI and VIQR look different.)
> ### Baamboo Tra từ ###

For Baamboo Tra từ, we need to decide which dictionary to include a search plugin for. They provide a different search plugin for each language pair, which makes sense for a translating dictionary. Here are the URLs of each OpenSearch plugin:

Vietnamese-Vietnamese: http://tratu.baamboo.com/searchbox/BaambooTraTu(VV).xml
English-Vietnamese: http://tratu.baamboo.com/searchbox/BaambooTraTu(AV).xml
Vietnamese-English: view-source:http://tratu.baamboo.com/searchbox/BaambooTraTu(VA).xml
French-Vietnamese: view-source:http://tratu.baamboo.com/searchbox/BaambooTraTu(PV).xml
Vietnamese-French: view-source:http://tratu.baamboo.com/searchbox/BaambooTraTu(VP).xml

Unfortunately, all of these plugins have malformed XML code, so we'll need to adapt them slightly.

> ### VDict ###

VDict has multiple plugins as well, all in the old Sherlock format:

Vietnamese-Vietnamese: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictvv.src
English-Vietnamese: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictev.src
Vietnamese-English: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictve.src
French-Vietnamese: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictfv.src
Vietnamese-French: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictvf.src

However, VDict also provides a comprehensive search plugin, which I'd prefer. It also searches an English-English dictionary and FOLDOC: http://static.vdict.com/files/vdictall.src

> ### Everyone else ###

Here are the URLs of other search engines' plugins:

XaLộ: http://xalo.vn/search.xml
7Sac music search: http://7sac.com/resources/xml/7sacBrowser_music.xml
Wikipedia: http://vi.wikipedia.org/w/opensearch_desc.php

If we use Google, Yahoo!, or Wikipedia, we can just customize the existing English-language plugins for those services.

Finally, I've worked with Hùng to create a search plugin for 5giay.vn, should we decide to include them in the list.
Attached file 5giay.vn OpenSearch plugin (obsolete) — 
This OpenSearch 1.1 plugin includes 5giay.vn's favicon, base 64–encoded. It has an update interval of seven days, but no <UpdateUrl> is specified, because I don't know where the plugin will end up online (whether at 5giay.vn or on Mozilla's servers).

This plugin is dependent on the current layout of 5giay.vn's search form. If they decide to change the name attribute of the submit button, for instance, the plugin will break.
Thank you very much, Minh. I always knew that we wouldnt be able to do this alone without help from other people :)

Yes, these days I'm discussing with the admins of 5giay.vn. In fact, they always let people browse products offers, they just didn't let people search in order to prevent attack. However, now they've decided to upgrade their servers and allow unregistered users to search for products. I've just sent them Minh's xml template, and I'm waiting for their reply.

I think we're close to completing the list, I'll summarize:
1. Google -> Google Vietnamese (done)
2. Yahoo -> Xalo.vn (done)
----
3. Amazon (e-commerce) -> 5giay.vn (working)

4. Answers.com (specific search) -> Baamboo or Vdict (choosing)
I prefer Baamboo, they have a box on the right for people to ask for help on translating. They also converted the dictionary database into a wiki site which let everyone help edit, create new words... (Don't know if that's good, though)

5. Creative Commons (specific search) -> After all comments above, I think we're fine to replace this with a music search engine or a music site, right? Still making a choice here:
http://xalo.vn/music.html (Chosen as a replacement for Yahoo!, may be removed)
http://mp3.baamboo.com/ (May be removed if chosen as dictionary search)
http://search.zing.vn/search/Default.aspx?mode=mp3
http://mp3.socbay.com
http://music.7sac.com
http://www.nhacso.net

6. eBay (e-commerce) -> muare.vn (done ?!)
Do we need to ask them to put an xml plugin template on their site?

7. Wikipedia (specific search) -> Wikipedia Vietnamese (done)
(In reply to comment #23)
> 5. Creative Commons (specific search) -> After all comments above, I think
> we're fine to replace this with a music search engine or a music site, right?

Seth, Axel, do we have any locales shipped without CC search?
(In reply to comment #24)
> Seth, Axel, do we have any locales shipped without CC search?

Tons.

I wouldn't replace it with some media site, as we're, AFAICT, exposing CC for reasons of the open web, not for colored pictures.
(In reply to comment #24)
> (In reply to comment #23)
> > 5. Creative Commons (specific search) -> After all comments above, I think
> > we're fine to replace this with a music search engine or a music site, right?
> 
> Seth, Axel, do we have any locales shipped without CC search?

Gen, on comment #18,  Staś already said that "FYI, we did remove [CC] from a couple of locales."

Just please don't think that as a direct replacement of CC. Mozilla ask us to give a list of most suitable SEs for every locale, and we just suggest ours. You could switch the suggestions of 4 & 5, then CC *might* be considered as being replaced by a dictionary search, it isn't annoying anymore, isn't it?

By the way, I've just checked and noticed that:
- fx-ja locale includes up to 8 SEs, and 3 of them are e-commerce sites.
- fx-ru locale includes 3 general search sites without CC, and 1 of these 3 allows search for media.
- CC-PL was already launched, but fx-pl locale doesn't include CC search. In the meanwhile, the CC people said not to expect CC-VI to launch before Summer of 2009 *at the earliest*.

Based on above notes: Is being shipped without CC search a big problem then? Is replacing CC search with a media search site a big problem?

Or Gen, may we have 8 SEs like your locale, so that we can keep CC search?

I have to say this: It doesn't matter to me what is included, because I myself rarely do search from the search bar. But if you want us to use CC search, then you should have said that it's required before having us spend time on finding the suitable SEs for our locale.

I need your final suggestion/direction on this, so that I, my team, Minh Nguyen and everyone who is helping us with the localization, wouldn't have to waste their time anymore!
(In reply to comment #26)
> I need your final suggestion/direction on this, so that I, my team, Minh Nguyen
> and everyone who is helping us with the localization, wouldn't have to waste
> their time anymore!

I wouldn't consider it a waste of time if we end up with more search engine plugins than we need. If these websites end up serving OpenSearch plugins, then the search bar button will light up more often, drawing attention to that feature.

Also, it looks like we're in the process of localizing a.m.o. So a page like <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:4/cat:all?sort=name>, which is linked from the Manage Search Engines dialog box, could list any additional search plugins we come up with.

But I guess I agree that Creative Commons Search doesn't look all that necessary at this point. We can add an additional search engine to the list when they launch CC-VI, right?
The directions should come from Stas here. Sorry for him being not as responsive as he usually is, he's wrapping up his thesis right now. He'll be back at full speed really soon now, I think next week.

I know that going through your input and giving some feedback on that is high on his list.
This version explicitly specifies UTF-8 encoding for the plugin itself, since the search engine's name includes accented characters.
Attachment #349045 - Attachment is obsolete: true
This OpenSearch 1.1 plugin includes Baamboo's favicon, base 64–encoded. It has an update interval of seven days, but no <UpdateUrl> is specified, because I don't know where an online version of this plugin will end up (whether at Baamboo or on Mozilla's servers).

This plugin searches Baamboo's Vietnamese-Vietnamese dictionary. They provide other dictionaries, but this one seems to be the most useful.
Sorry for the bugspam; this'll be the last one for today.

This OpenSearch 1.1 plugin includes VDict.com's favicon, base 64–encoded. It has an update interval of seven days, but no <UpdateUrl> is specified, because I don't know where an online version of this plugin will end up (whether at VDict.com or on Mozilla's servers).

This plugin searches VDict.com's Vietnamese-Vietnamese dictionary. They provide other dictionaries, but this one seems to be the most useful, with the fewest errors.
Hi,

I have a question for Minh Nguyen. I'm not sure why you would create a plugin Vietnamese-Vietnamese Baamboo plug-in for the localized version. If this Firefox is for Vietnamese people to use, would they need to find a Vietnamese translation for a Vietnamese word, or would they mostly use Baamboo to translate English? I think it's better to set Eng-Vie to default in your Baamboo plugin.

Besides, if I have to compare between vdict and Baamboo, I'd say that Baamboo is better. The word bank of vdict is quite limited. Baamboo has specific dictionaries, and their Q&A is the best way to get a translation done.

Just think that I'd throw my 2c in!
Son already said what I wanted to say. BTW, there are too many annoying Ads on VDict. Its interface isn't so friendly. I use Baamboo all the time, think it's quite OK.

About media search site, I think mp3.zing.vn is a good choice.
(In reply to comment #32)
> I have a question for Minh Nguyen. I'm not sure why you would create a plugin
> Vietnamese-Vietnamese Baamboo plug-in for the localized version. If this
> Firefox is for Vietnamese people to use, would they need to find a Vietnamese
> translation for a Vietnamese word, or would they mostly use Baamboo to
> translate English? I think it's better to set Eng-Vie to default in your
> Baamboo plugin.

The Vietnamese-Vietnamese dictionary gives actual definitions, as opposed to
just translations. But I can see the use for a translating search plugin. If we
include English->Vietnamese, though, I'd prefer also including
Vietnamese->English. In any case, it's only a small change to the plugin.

> Besides, if I have to compare between vdict and Baamboo, I'd say that Baamboo
> is better. The word bank of vdict is quite limited. Baamboo has specific
> dictionaries, and their Q&A is the best way to get a translation done.

I agree that Baamboo is a better reference source than VDict at this point. As
a wiki, they're not much better than VDict, but their Q&A sidebar is a lot more
accessible to users than VDict's community forum (http://community.vdict.com/).

(In reply to comment #33)
> Son already said what I wanted to say. BTW, there are too many annoying Ads on
> VDict. Its interface isn't so friendly. I use Baamboo all the time, think it's
> quite OK.

Hehe, I didn't even realize VDict had ads. I should disable Adblock sometime to see what the Internet really looks like these days. :^)
I think we should consider our stand point in this localized version of Firefox. Are we doing for those in Vietnam to use, or those Vietnamese that are abroad? Each stand point will have different needs for the plugins. For those in Vietnam, a dictionary is the one that can translate some other languages into Vietnamese, not the one that provides definition.

But for those abroad like me, sometimes I forget a Vietnamese word, and a Vie-Vie or Vie-Eng is useful. But I don't see many situations like that.

For Baamboo and vDict, again, those abroad will see the Vietnamese-English machine translation service of vdict really useful, but only those in Vietnam with specific needs will use it.
Still, no comments from Stas on this bug. Okay, we'll remove the media search plugin and keep Creative Commons plugin!

So, would anybody comment on this bug and resolve it?

Here are the final suggestions, I'll attach the plugins below:
1. Google - Vietnam version.
2. Xalo - Vietnamese search engine.

3. 5giay.vn - e-commerce.
4. Baamboo TraTu - English-Vietnamese Dictionary.
5. Creative Commons
6. Muare.vn - e-commerce.
7. Wikipedia (vi) - Vietnam version.
Attached file 5giay.xml - Updated by Minh. (obsolete) — 

    
    

    
  


  

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached file
          
        Muare.vn (obsolete)
        — 
      

    


  

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached file
          
        Wikipedia (vi) (obsolete)
        — 
      

    


  

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached file
          
        Xalo (obsolete)
        — 
      

    


  

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #36)
> Still, no comments from Stas on this bug. Okay, we'll remove the media search
> plugin and keep Creative Commons plugin!
> 
> So, would anybody comment on this bug and resolve it?

Hi Hung. I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I was taking some time off in November to wrap up my thesis. I'll be happy to review the latest comments as well as the plugins you attached tomorrow.

    
    

    
  
Ping?

    
    

    
  
Again, I'm very sorry for my lags. I didn't mean to keep you waiting. I'll do my best to help you close this bug shortly.

I have read through all the comments once again, and here's a summary of the current status + a couple of my comments.

general search
* google -> google
* yahoo -> xalo OR zing (zing seems to be much more popular)

e-commerce (we have a rather unique situation when two websites are popular in different parts of the country)
* Amazon -> muare.vn
* eBay -> 5giay.vn

specific interest search
* wikipedia -> wikipedia (vi)
* Answers -> bamboo en-vi
* mp3.zing.vn OR nhacso.net (choose one; if 2nd plugin is zing, then we could probably choose nhacso.net here)
* CC

The list has 8 plug-ins, which is only one more then en-US. I think this is acceptable. The rationale for some of the choices is as follows:

* For general search, one of the suggestions was XaLo. However, it seems to be much less popular than any other website we have discussed in this bug (according to Alexa), so I'm wondering if we could consider changing it to something more well-known. Zing might be one of the candidates, what do you think?

* Including both muare.vn and 5giay.vn makes sense to me since they are popular in different part of the country (comment 2). Also, I'm really happy to know that 5giay.vn now allows unregistered users to search their site (comment 23). Thanks Hung! 

* Media search seems to be an important part of the web experience in Vietnam, and consequently, I would like to see one of the suggested search engines included. I understand from comments above that mp3.zing.vn and nhacso.net are considered good candidates, offering legal downloads and/or purchase of music. Choosing one of this will likely improve the user experience of Vietnamese Firefox users.

* For dictionaries, I would be in favor of including a English-to-Vietnamese service. This is what we have usually done in other locale (if the web service doesn't detect the input language automatically). It seems logical and besides, for those who need the vi-to-en translation, it demonstrates very well the usefulness of the search plug-in feature (so I hope they will be able to add other dictionary plug-ins according to their needs).

* Finally, there's CC. I don't want to make it a requirement, but I see benefits of including it in the Vietnamese build. I'd support it in order to raise the awareness of the brand that stands for a movement that is so much in line with Mozilla's mission. I suggest it as the 8th plug-in.

Please let me know what you think. We still have time before the 3.1 beta3 code freeze (currently scheduled for Jan 13), so don't worry if it takes another couple of days to close this bug. Again, sorry for my being busy with other stuff recently. I'm happy to be able to help in this bug now.

One final note: the plug-ins will be stored on the user's hard drive, in the browser's installation directory, so they don't need the "update" elements. Please use <SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/"> as the root element (instead of <OpenSearchDescription>). A good example of a search plug-in is here:
http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/locales/en-US/searchplugins/wikipedia.xml
When requesting a review, please submit a patch with plug-ins added as new files in browser/searchplugins (use 'hg add') and modified browser/searchplugins/list.txt (the lines should match the names of the plug-in files, without the ".xml".

PS. Minh, thanks for explaining what the E and V stand for. This is fascinating stuff!

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #44)

Thank you for taking your time. I was just wondering about how Mozilla process these bugs since I didn't hear anything from you... :)

> * For general search, one of the suggestions was XaLo. However, it seems to be
> much less popular than any other website we have discussed in this bug
> (according to Alexa), so I'm wondering if we could consider changing it to
> something more well-known. Zing might be one of the candidates, what do you
> think?
> 

Yeah, Zing is the most popular, but I think it's kind of unsuitable, because they only search on their own/affliate sites, not the whole Web. And their search engine is powered by Google and Vietica.
Xalo.vn, well, there are many things to tell about it. It was the first search engine in Vietnam, established in 2001 with the name Vinaseek.com. It had been available until 2005, when the main developer abandoned the project. Then recently, the site's company was invested by IDG Ventures. They decided to improve the engine and move it to another domain ("Xa Lộ" means "Highway", considered as a good name here). After 6 months of experimenting, it was just officially announced on the end of September, but as you can see, now it has reached #230 in Top Vietnam sites on Alexa. And the most important, the company develops its own search engine.

As you have noticed, in comment #36, I decided to remove the media search plugin and keep CC. But now, as we can still keep the media search plugin, that's great :) Thanks!

So, plus your comments, I think the final list should be:
> general search
> * google -> google
+ yahoo -> xalo

> e-commerce (we have a rather unique situation when two websites are popular in
> different parts of the country)
> * Amazon -> muare.vn
> * eBay -> 5giay.vn

> specific interest search
> * wikipedia -> wikipedia (vi)
> * Answers -> bamboo en-vi
+ * mp3.zing.vn 
> * CC

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached patch
          
          
        searchplugins.patch (obsolete)
        — 
          — Splinter Review
      

    


  
Patch for search plugins

        Attachment #352986 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #352987 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #352988 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #352989 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #352990 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #354481 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #45)
> Thank you for taking your time. I was just wondering about how Mozilla process
> these bugs since I didn't hear anything from you... :)

I was taking some time off to finish writing my master thesis. I'm sorry you had to wait because of this.

> Yeah, Zing is the most popular, but I think it's kind of unsuitable, because
> they only search on their own/affliate sites, not the whole Web. 

Yes, that's true. I haven't noticed that, but now that you mentioned it, I think we shouldn't make zing our second search plugin. Thank you.

> Xalo.vn, well, there are many things to tell about it. It was the first search
> engine in Vietnam, established in 2001 with the name Vinaseek.com. It had been
> available until 2005, when the main developer abandoned the project. Then
> recently, the site's company was invested by IDG Ventures. They decided to
> improve the engine and move it to another domain ("Xa L·ªô" means "Highway",
> considered as a good name here). After 6 months of experimenting, it was just
> officially announced on the end of September, but as you can see, now it has
> reached #230 in Top Vietnam sites on Alexa. And the most important, the company
> develops its own search engine.

Xa Lo seems to give me quite good results (I searched for some generic English words, like "xbox", as well as a couple of Vietnamese cities, like Hà Nội etc. and the results were good) but I believe that we should be really careful when considering search engines that are new on the market and hasn't yet gained much popularity. Including this plugin in the Vietnamese version of Firefox can be an important factor in defining the future of this search engine. This is a kind of situation that we've been trying to avoid ever since. This is why we always try to look for popular and well-established search engines in the first place. We don't want Firefox to be used as a advantage agains competitors.

We faced a similar (though not exactly the same) problem with the Thai localization (bug 443375): there were 6-7 equally popular e-commerce sites and we finally decided to leave the en-US defaults, as we didn't want to make Firefox an advantage for any of them.

I'm actually thinking that for now, we might just as well have only Google in the generic search category, which seems to give very good results in Vietnamese. It seems that many other search engines are using Google technology, which I interpret as an sign that the quality of the results returned by Google is good.

I also found this article on Vietnamese search engines: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2007/10/749577/ which seems to support this idea. A quote from the article: "For searching the web, there are some Vietnamese names like Vinaseek, PanVietNam but they are still dim besides Yahoo, Google or MSN. “Google does such a good job searching the web in Vietnam that we have decided not to develop a web search function, but searching for music, blog and general news,” said Pham Viet Dung, one of the developers of 7 Sac."


> As you have noticed, in comment #36, I decided to remove the media search
> plugin and keep CC. But now, as we can still keep the media search plugin,
> that's great :) Thanks!

I think that the media search was an important part of the web experience in Vietnam (as I understood from your comments and my own research), so I'm happy to see one of the media search plugins on the final list.

> So, plus your comments, I think the final list should be:
> > general search
> > * google -> google
> + yahoo -> xalo

I would suggest leaving only google in this category. Maybe we can reconsider adding a local search engine here at a later date.

general search
* google -> google

> 
> > e-commerce (we have a rather unique situation when two websites are popular in
> > different parts of the country)
> > * Amazon -> muare.vn
> > * eBay -> 5giay.vn
> 
> > specific interest search
> > * wikipedia -> wikipedia (vi)
> > * Answers -> bamboo en-vi
> + * mp3.zing.vn 
> > * CC

OK! No comments on these two categories.

    
    

    
  
First, I'd like to say "Happy New Year!" to everyone :)

Well, I think I still have one big question:
Is it important that the suggested site should have its own search engine (SE)?

Situation A: If the answer is No, then I won't have anything to say anymore... And I just wish you had said about this in the guidelines, so we wouldn't have taken time to try to find the best Vietnamese "search engine" available, and we wouldn't have taken time to discuss on keeping CC search or not!

Situation B: If the answer is Yes, then I'll have some other questions:
- May we favor the local sites?
- If the localizer is not an IT expert, will Mozilla help them to analyze the suggested sites? (For ex, I hadn't known about the "true SE" problem until I read some topics about that). And then, should we choose the popular sites or the best coded sites?

You shouldn't be worried about Firefox being used as an advantage for a site against its competitors, because I think... there is no competitor here. I hadn't known much about Vietnamese search sites and had never used them until the day Axel filed this bug! Then I spent a day to read various topics about Vietnamese search sites, most of these topics are from ddth.com (the most popular IT forum which I mentioned in bug 463444). From what I read in those topics, I knew that only Xalo, Socbay and Vietica have their own SEs (comment #2 and comment #4). But as Tan said in comment #5, Vietica doesn't offer generic web search, so there are only two left. And I'll tell you why I chose Xalo:

a. Try searching for "Hà Nội" on the Web:
Xalo: 18,485,317 results
Socbay: 3,187,331 results.

b. The most annoying thing about Socbay is that, though Socbay considers itself as a generic web search, when you get to www.socbay.com, its default search is "MP3", not "Web". That gives me a feeling that Socbay seems to give up on being a generic web search.

c. But even in Music Search, Socbay can't beat Xalo.
* Try searching "Chuyen ve nguoi con gai" (Story about a girl), a song in an album released in Aug 2008 by first Vietnam Idol 2007 Phuong Vy:
Xalo: 324 results.
Socbay: 0 result!
* Try searching for songs which have "Hà Nội" in their titles:
Xalo: 1,908 results.
Socbay: 688 results.

d. On Alexa:
Xalo: 36,166 in world rank, and 240 in Vietnam rank.
Socbay: 53,807 in world rank, and 369 in Vietnam rank.

As I said, I'm not an IT expert, so I don't know if these tests were enough. I should also admit that these sites can't beat Google. But the local search still seems to be good enough? And that's why I asked you those questions above.

Situation C: In case you still wouldn't think Xalo is a good choice for a general search plugin, then may we have it as the media search plugin? Yes, Zing is a good media site, but its media search result is not as good as Xalo's (my comment #23), and we already featured Zing on "Getting Started" page. I myself usually get to Zing to check for new/most favourite albums, songs, etc..., but when I need to find a specific song, I always use Xalo. I should admit that, after knowing about Vietnamese search sites, I only access Xalo to search for music and blog content :^)

I should say once again, as in comment #26, that I rarely (almost not) use that search box. So I could just keep the en-US defaults, like some other localization teams. And that would be much easier for both Mozilla and me. But will the purpose of localization be just like that? I want, yes, to do what is said in Mozilla Manifesto: help Vietnamese users get full experience with fully Vietnamese localized version of Firefox. That's why I have been asking so many questions and giving out many thoughts of mine. So, sorry if I had bothered anyone.

Thank you.

PS: I'm sorry to say that I was mistaken in my previous comment. It seemed that TinhVan hadn't abandoned the project, there was news about new feature of Vinaseek in Oct 2006 [1], and the site had still been available until 2008 [2], right before the beta release of Xalo. And it's not TinhVan but VCCorp (owner of Baamboo) received the investment from IDG (Both company were invested the same amount of money by different investors, so I remembered the wrong one).

[1]: http://www.tinhvan.com/vi/corp_news/news/mlnews.2006-06-02.5140935991
[2]: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.vinaseek.com

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #48)
> First, I'd like to say "Happy New Year!" to everyone :)

Thanks and you too!

> Well, I think I still have one big question:
> Is it important that the suggested site should have its own search engine (SE)?

My first thought is: no, it's not very important. To use Google as an example, AFAIK, it's possible to tailor their custom search engine to give different results on your site from what Googl returns on google.com. You can for example specify a list of URL that will have higher priority for the engine. What this means to me is that it's possible for the local search site to use a third-party search engine and still give different (possibly better suited for local users) results. Also, in some cases a hybrid approched can be used: for example timnhanh.com seems to use both Google and their own engine at the same time.

> Situation A: If the answer is No, then I won't have anything to say anymore...
> And I just wish you had said about this in the guidelines, so we wouldn't have
> taken time to try to find the best Vietnamese "search engine" available, and we
> wouldn't have taken time to discuss on keeping CC search or not!

I'm confident that all this discussion wasn't in vain. We're all learning here and Vietnamese is really unique in many aspects, so many questions we have seen coming up in the discussion were asked for the first time. Thanks to your research, we were able to learn a lot about the search engine market in Vietnam which allows us to take better decisions. The ultimate goal here is to provide Vietnamese users with good experience. And I'm positive that we can do that.

> Situation B: If the answer is Yes, then I'll have some other questions:
> - May we favor the local sites?
> - If the localizer is not an IT expert, will Mozilla help them to analyze the
> suggested sites? (For ex, I hadn't known about the "true SE" problem until I
> read some topics about that). And then, should we choose the popular sites or
> the best coded sites?

That's a very important question and I'm glad you asked it. Of course, we would always like to see these two criteria converge, i.e. choose well-performing sites that are popular. This is not always possible, though. Therefore, we want to make objective and impartial decisions. A popularity is one such criterion that we can use here. Personal evaluation is very important, but is subject to errors or bias (mostly unintended; personally, I have to remind myself often enough to look at the suggested sites from the users' point of view, not my own).

It's crucial that we take popularity into account because Firefox, being a successful browser, is in fact a means of getting to more users, visitors and clients. As I said before, we have to be careful here, because by shipping Firefox with a search plug-in, we create or increase an advantage of this search engine compared to its competitors. This may not be the case for Vietnamese, but surely can be (and is) the case for other locales. Setting precedents is risky and this is why I'm against including Xalo at this point. I will be very happy to revisit this decision once Xalo gains more popularity.

> And I'll tell you why I chose Xalo:
> [cut]
> As I said, I'm not an IT expert, so I don't know if these tests were enough. I
> should also admit that these sites can't beat Google. But the local search
> still seems to be good enough? And that's why I asked you those questions
> above.

I was able to see these results too, when I tested Xalo myself. I was happy with the quality of the results, but again, I don't think we should include Xalo at this point. 

> Situation C: In case you still wouldn't think Xalo is a good choice for a
> general search plugin, then may we have it as the media search plugin? Yes,
> Zing is a good media site, but its media search result is not as good as Xalo's
> (my comment #23), and we already featured Zing on "Getting Started" page. I
> myself usually get to Zing to check for new/most favourite albums, songs,
> etc..., but when I need to find a specific song, I always use Xalo. I should
> admit that, after knowing about Vietnamese search sites, I only access Xalo to
> search for music and blog content :^)

This isn't really very different from the previous situation, is it? I think it is too soon right now to ship with Xalo Music. I would like us to revisit this (in a new bug) in the future, when Xalo is more popular. Again I want to be clear about one thing: I'm not against Xalo, but I think it's too soon to take it in at this point. It might set a precedent we usually try to avoid.

Given the above, I'd like us to ship with the following plug-ins:

general search
* google -> google

e-commerce:
* Amazon -> muare.vn
* eBay -> 5giay.vn

specific interest search
* wikipedia -> wikipedia (vi)
* Answers -> bamboo en-vi
* mp3.zing.vn
* CC

I believe this is a list that offers good experience to Vietnamese users. I would also like that we observe Xalo in case we want to add it in the future.

I will contact the providers and ask for permissions and technical details.

> I should say once again, as in comment #26, that I rarely (almost not) use that
> search box. So I could just keep the en-US defaults, like some other
> localization teams. And that would be much easier for both Mozilla and me. But
> will the purpose of localization be just like that? I want, yes, to do what is
> said in Mozilla Manifesto: help Vietnamese users get full experience with fully
> Vietnamese localized version of Firefox. That's why I have been asking so many
> questions and giving out many thoughts of mine. So, sorry if I had bothered
> anyone.

This has been an excellent discussion and I would like to thank you and other participants for your input. We're here to choose best search plug-ins possible for Vietnamese users and I hope we were able to do that. 

I, personally, learned a lot about Vietnam and Vietnamese language, mostly thanks to your questions and research, so thanks for that as well! :)

    
    

    
  
E-mails sent to muare.vn and 5giay.vn. tratu.baamboo.com was timing out (not a good sign), so I could look for any contact info. For mp3.zing.com, I'll wait till Monday.

    
    

    
  
Comment on attachment 354481 [details] [diff] [review]
searchplugins.patch

r- for two reasons (easy to fix though, so no worries):

First, please use <Param name="key" value="val"/> instead of putting all parameters in the URL's template. So this:
>+<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://tratu.baamboo.com/extensions/suggest2.php?search={searchTerms}&amp;dict=en_vn" />

would become this:
<Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://tratu.baamboo.com/extensions/suggest2.php">
  <Param name="search" value="{searchTerms}"/>
  <Param name="dict" value="en_vn"/>
</Url>

The same for all other URLs used.

Second, since we're using:
<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">

we need to change this:
>+<moz:SearchForm>http://tratu.baamboo.com/index.php?dict=en_vn</moz:SearchForm>

to:
<SearchForm>http://tratu.baamboo.com/index.php?dict=en_vn</SearchForm>

and this:
>+</OpenSearchDescription>

to:
</SearchPlugin>

When you fix these two issues (in all plugins), please submit a new patch again.

        Attachment #354481 -
        Flags: review?(stas) → review-

    
    

    
  
Thank you for your insightful comments, Staś!
They're clear to me in answering all my questions. :) 

I almost forgot TimNhanh. Xalo is still far behind them. If the suggested sites don't need to have their own SEs, then TimNhanh is the best choice as they offer quite many useful services (in facts, too many ;) However, we're fine with your suggestions list. I'm going to attach the new patch now.

Really thank you, again, for spending so much time on doing research and discussing with us. I'd like to thank everybody as well for your input and help :)

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached patch
          
          
        searchplugins.patch (obsolete)
        — 
          — Splinter Review
      

    


  
About Vietnam sites, I also don't know how to contact them properly. Some sites seem not to read foreign language emails as they think those emails are just spams. And for example, on 5giay, though the official contact form is broken, they don't seem to care about fixing it as they can be easily contacted on their forums.

However, I've just sent messages (in Vietnamese, of course) to all of them to notice them about your email. Hope they'll get back to us soon.

        Attachment #354481 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #356239 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

    
    

    
  
Baamboo said they checked the spam box but didn't see your email. (I don't know to which address you emailed to them either, as they don't put the official email address on their site (just phone number)).

So, here is their official contact email, please use it instead:
lienhe.tratu@baamboo.com

    
    

    
  
Ha, sorry for a typo. I wrote:

(In reply to comment #50)
> E-mails sent to muare.vn and 5giay.vn. tratu.baamboo.com was timing out (not a
> good sign), so I could look for any contact info. For mp3.zing.com, I'll wait
> till Monday.

And I wanted to write "so I couldn't look for any contact info" :) I sent the e-mail to lienhe.tratu@baamboo.com a while ago and copied you as well.

For 5giay.vn, I used this form: http://5giay.vn/sendmessage.php. It seemed to work. Should I resend my message?

    
    

    
  
For mp3.zing.vn, I used this form: http://www.zing.vn/zing/Forms/FeedBack.aspx. I don't know if it went through, I got a "failure notice" e-mail saying that one recipient didn't get the message. Not sure if they were the only recipient as well.

    
    

    
  
Well, it seems that the web business in Vietnam is not so that busy.

A friend of mine (working for Vinagame - the owner of Zing) said that the Zing staffs are off work on Saturday and Sunday(?!), so we may wait until Monday. By the way, here is another form to contact the Zing MP3 staff:
http://mp3.zing.vn/lienhe.php

The contact form of muare is fine, but not 5giay, so I asked them the best way for you to contact them. However, I haven't heard anything from both sites today (don't know if this "Day Off" thing is applied to them :) 

In short, we'll wait until Monday. If I still don't hear anything from them, I'll try to call them directly.

    
    

    
  
Monday or Tuesday are fine, let's let them rest during the weekend :) We should try to get the permissions before this Tuesday's code freeze for beta3 (to check the patch in). 

BTW. I saw you had already opted in for beta3, but please note that the revision number that you gave will change when you push the patch from this bug, so we will need to make sure Axel knows about this. I'll keep this in mind.

    
    

    
  
I've received response from the webmaster of 5giay. You can contact him at: lkdan183@yahoo.com

(Of course, you can re-check his contact information here ("Thông Tin Liên Lạc")
http://5giay.vn/member.php?u=1
)

In case you don't think it's fine, you can send emails to this address:
webmaster@5giay.vn

He's on business now. So, please notice me whenever you email him, so I'll call him directly to notice him as well.

    
    

    
  
Baamboo and Muare confirmed that they had replied you. (Note: Baamboo's email went into my spam box!)

And today there was something happened at Zing. I tried to call to their official numbers, but no one answered. And my friend informed me that the company closed the workplace today and asked all staffs to go home. I asked him to try to reach the one who is responsible for Zing MP3 but he was not successful. 

This is really weird. I really don't understand what was happening?! Maybe my friend knew, but was not allowed to tell the outsiders. However, he told me not to worry, because "I can be sure with you that they will be working tomorrow."

Then, what should we do? Eventhough my friend is very sure about tomorrow, but what if there is another "problem"?

However, the timezone in Vietnam is GMT+7, so I think we still have some time before the code freeze.

    
    

    
  
Confirming. I received replies from Muare and Baamboo.

Muare wants us to use the following URL for search:
http://search.muare.vn/Search.aspx?q={searchTerms}&mode=normal&forum_id=0&we
ek=0&reply=no
This is the same URL as used by Hung in attachment 356239 [details] [diff] [review], so we're good here.

For Baamboo, I sent another e-mail to confirm search parameters.

(In reply to comment #60)
> Then, what should we do? Eventhough my friend is very sure about tomorrow, but
> what if there is another "problem"?

We'll see what happens tomorrow. If we don't have a reply from them, then I suggest we drop them in beta3 and try to add them in the RC. I wouldn't like to block Vietnamese beta because of Zing, and adding them later isn't a problem at all. However, let's wait till tomorrow.

    
    

    
  
E-mail sent to 5giay to the addresses from comment 59. And I got the reply almost instantly :) We have the permission and the search parameters have been confirmed.

For Zing, I tried to use http://mp3.zing.vn/lienhe.php, but I got this message:
Trong quá trình gửi mail có lỗi!
Google translate tells me this means an error.

    
    

    
  
> For Baamboo, I sent another e-mail to confirm search parameters.
Baamboo also meant to confirm that when they said "accept your suggestion". Maybe their words were not clear to you, though.


> For Zing, I tried to use http://mp3.zing.vn/lienhe.php, but I got this message:
> Trong quá trình gửi mail có lỗi!
> Google translate tells me this means an error.
Confirmed. Don't know if this error relates to the incident today :| However, yes, "let's wait till tomorrow", and I'll try to contact them before you wake up :^)

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #63)
> > For Baamboo, I sent another e-mail to confirm search parameters.
> Baamboo also meant to confirm that when they said "accept your suggestion".
> Maybe their words were not clear to you, though.

Probably my misunderstanding. I just wanted to be sure. I have received the confirmation: the parameters we're currently using are fine.

> Confirmed. Don't know if this error relates to the incident today :| However,
> yes, "let's wait till tomorrow", and I'll try to contact them before you wake
> up :^)

:) Maybe I'll be still up? :) Thanks a lot, your help make things much easier!

    
    

    
  
Now I know, Zing, or Vinagame, is having some problems with their mail server. However, my friend was successful to give me the contact email of the supervisor of Zing. I'm now sending an email to him to explain basic things. 

Here is his email:
cangpv@vinagame.com.vn

Please contact him as soon as possible. Our timezones are different, hope we won't miss one another. (Err, are you still up? ;)

    
    

    
  
When sending emails to Cang, please also CC to:
manhpl@vinagame.com.vn

    
    

    
  
Sorry, I think I have some more questions, related to... Zing, again.

What are all these permission things? Are they legal binding, and why do you only need acception via email?

Because Zing seems to concern about this. And in facts, they told me that an agreement is necessary.

I don't know about these legal stuffs, so I couldn't just say that "there is no need of an agreement". So, what should I explain to them?

    
    

    
  
If there is no financial transaction, we do not do contracts.  

For the search engines who are paying us for referrals (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) there are contracts, but unless Zing is going to pay us (I don't think we are having such a discussion) then we do not sign any contracts.  I hope that clarifies the situation.

    
    

    
  
E-mail sent to mp3.zing.vn.

What Gen said. The permissions that we're requiring are a courtesy thing: the plug-ins increase the traffic on the website, so we're asking every time if the the website can handle this additional traffic (we don't want to DDoS anyone by having all Firefox users use their website).

This isn't any kind of a commercial deal.

    
    

    
  
Thanks for all your explanation.

Now is 00:40am in Vietnam. I think maybe Zing will reply tomorrow morning, several hours before the code freeze (02:59pm). But Staś may not be up at that time, and I wonder if Zing is going to give us permission right away or not.

So, Staś, should I attach a new patch now?

Really sorry for wasting your time.

    
    

    
  
Don't worry Hung, that's not your fault :)

It seems that there's a good chance that the code freeze gets rescheduled by a week or so, but this is going to be confirmed today.

I'll let you know as soon as I know, so that you can sleep and not worry :) If the code freeze isn't rescheduled, I'll be up long enough today to get everything done.

To sum up: don't worry! :) We're going to make either way.

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached patch
          
          
        searchplugins-no-zing.patch (obsolete)
        — 
          — Splinter Review
      

    


  
Thank you, Stas!

I'm going to bed now. I'm still attaching the new patch, just in case. One last note: Zing's workday starts at 9am in Vietnam, which is 3am in your place (erm, right?), so try to get your eyes open ;-p

        Attachment #356744 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

    
    

    
  
Alright, Axel posted the announcement here: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.l10n/browse_thread/thread/c49846c15fc3420a# The code freeze is now Sunday, January 25. That's good news :)

I have already received the permission from Zing. We're just waiting for the confirmation on parameters now.

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached patch
          
          
        searchplugins.patch (obsolete)
        — 
          — Splinter Review
      

    


  
It's lucky that the code freeze date is changed. (As I said to Stas, there was power shortage today in my area).

Zing gave us permission and suggested new search parameters, so I'm attaching this new patch.

        Attachment #356239 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #356744 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #356935 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

        Attachment #356239 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

        Attachment #356744 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

    
    

    
  
I have received an e-mail from 24.com.vn suggesting that we include with nhac.vui.vn as the media search plugin. I checked nhac.vui.vn on Alexa and it was much less popular then mp3.zing.vn, so I would be in favor of keeping mp3.zing.vn for now.

What are your opinions?

    
    

    
  
Hi Stas,

Sorry for interfering! 

I'm one of the localizer, but just comment here and there, hope you don't mind!

We had checked and compared between 24h sites (including nhac.vui.vn) and Zing sites, and we chose Zing because we believe it's better. Hùng will confirm you on this!

    
    

    
  
(In reply to comment #76)

> Sorry for interfering! 
> 
> I'm one of the localizer, but just comment here and there, hope you don't mind!

Of course I don't mind, how could I? :)

> We had checked and compared between 24h sites (including nhac.vui.vn) and Zing
> sites, and we chose Zing because we believe it's better. Hùng will confirm you
> on this!

Great, thanks for this valuable feedback.

    
    

    
  
I've confirmed this in my email to Staś.

    
    

    
  
Comment on attachment 356935 [details] [diff] [review]
searchplugins.patch

The patch mostly looks good, but I'll still r- it, just so that we make sure we get everything in.

I tested the plug-ins and didn't come across any technical issues. My comments are below:


>+<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://5giay.vn/search.php">
>+<Param name="do" value="process"/>
>+<Param name="query" value="{searchTerms}"/>
>+<Param name="titleonly" value="1"/>
>+<Param name="dosearch" value="dosearch"/>
>+</Url>

I'd like to ask you to indent the <Params/> with two spaces, like so:

<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://5giay.vn/search.php">
  <Param name="do" value="process"/>
  ...
</Url>

This applies to all plug-ins.

>diff --git a/browser/searchplugins/wikipedia-vi.xml b/browser/searchplugins/wikipedia-vi.xml
>new file mode 100644

Please use the plug-in that we have in en-US and adapt it for Vietnamese Wikipedia. We use a sourceid parameter there and different URLs. You can find the en-US plug-in here: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/e416d62b69a5/browser/locales/en-US/searchplugins/wikipedia.xml. You'll have to change lines 6, 10 and 14.

>+<Description>Wikipedia (vi)</Description>
We normally have something like "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" here.


>diff --git a/browser/searchplugins/zing-mp3.xml b/browser/searchplugins/zing-mp3.xml
>+<SearchForm>http://mp3.zing.vn/mp3/search/</SearchForm>

Using this URL here gives an error message on mp3.zing.vn ("Từ khóa phải có chiều dài từ 2 kí tự trở lên." - The query must have at least 2 characters), so the user experience suffers. I suggest we simply use http://mp3.zing.vn/.

Also, as we decided to ship with only one general search plug-in (Google), you'll need to remove "browser.search.order.2=Yahoo" (line 6) from region.properties:
http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/vi/file/tip/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties#l6
Please include this change in the patch.

Thanks Hung, we're getting really close! :)

        Attachment #356935 -
        Flags: review?(stas) → review-

    
    

    
  


  
Thanks Stas.
I've made the code look tidy as you suggested. Here is the new patch :)

        Attachment #356935 -
        Attachment is obsolete: true

        Attachment #357912 -
        Flags: review?(stas)

    
    

    
  
Comment on attachment 357912 [details] [diff] [review]
searchplugins.patch

Nice work :)

r=me. Please use a verbose check-in comment, e.g. "Bug 463441: Search engine setup for Firefox 3.1, r=stas" and land this patch on 3.1 (1.9.1) and 3.2 (l10n-central) branches.

Please use fixed1.9.1 and verified1.9.1 keywords in this bug to track landing on the 1.9.1 branch and verification in a nightly build.

Don't forget to update the beta3 opt-in revision in the opt-in thread after landing this patch. We definitely want this in for beta3 :)

Thanks!

        Attachment #357912 -
        Flags: review?(stas) → review+

    
    

    
  
Finally!

>Please use fixed1.9.1 and verified1.9.1 keywords in this bug to track landing
>on the 1.9.1 branch and verification in a nightly build.
I couldn't update the keywords. It seems that you or someone will take care of this, right :)

I've pushed the changed files to the repos. I've also noticed Axel on the opt-in thread. You can check at:
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n-mozilla-1.9.1/vi/rev/5b133175e063
http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/vi/rev/80718cadd380

Now we can have this bug marked as resolved.
Thank you, Staś! Thank you, everyone!

    
    

    
  
Yay, awesome! Marking as fixed.

I have updated the https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Firefox_web_services_status:vi page for reference.

Please verify the change in the current nightlies.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Keywords: fixed1.9.1
Resolution: --- → FIXED

    
    

    
  
Verified with the latest build "21-Jan-2009 03:09"! :)

    
    

    
      
  

    
    

    
  
This bug is closed. Please file a new bug if you are proposing a new set of search partners.

    
    

    
      
  

    
    

    
      
  

    
    

    
  
(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] from comment #88)
> As already said, you're commenting on a bug closed 5 years ago. File a new
> bug if you want to update your search engine settings.

Not to mention that this would be a very odd set of sites to feature in the search bar: only #1, #6, and #7 could be considered search engines. The rest are online stores for a single kind of product or, in the case of #4, an SEO forum (!).

    
    

    
  
Guys, please consider banning the above spamming email address and disable commenting on this bug.

Ha-Duong

    
    

    
  
i've restricted commenting due to the high number of spam comments on this bug.
Restrict Comments: true

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