1180835 - [Marketplace] Unlocalized strings in Marketplace

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Marketplace Graveyard :: Consumer Pages, defect, P4)

Description

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Some strings appear unlocalized in the Marketplace. They do not exist in Verbatim even after a recent update.

- Painting Apps (+ description)
- Groundbreaking Games (+ description)

Some strings have been in Verbatim before but disappeared, see bug 1176585.

Unless it’s a policy to push new strings for en-US ASAP and care a little less about localized versions, this is also a friendly but urgent request to prevent such issues in the future. Ideally and like other l0n sections of Mozilla websites or products, new pushes should be able to use localizations being up-to-date in order to be useful to any user (not only English) and these issues should only occur for locales that are not (so only localizers are to blame), not for any other reason. If not, MP may look a bit unprofessional in the first place and localizers may get nervous and start wondering if they failed somewhere.

In case a lack of testing (capabilities) might be a reason for this - possibly because the MP website defaults to the preferred locale set in the browser - I’d suggest changing the code in a way that the en-US locale is handled in a similar way as any other, so that any error (i.e. missing string) immediately gets noticed in en-US as well before pushing without much effort.

Comment 1

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

New string to add (not in Verbatim):

- Travel Apps

Comment 2

[David Durst [:ddurst]]

This was a hiccup in our process -- I think we usually pull these in after they're added to ensure they're in Verbatim. This process will likely be discontinued soon.

Comment 3

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Thanks, I certainly hope so. Not to blame anyone though, but I’ve seen some more "I think", "we should", "likely", "soon" and similar phrases when it comes to Marketplace l10n. Frankly I’d also hoped to see the missing strings implemented around last wednesday, and something is telling me there will still be existing or even new unlocalized strings appearing on the next. This process should really improve, and thinking of it now, I cannot recall a day when all content displayed as it should for other than English. The wontfix for this bug doesn’t make me happy either (as if nothing will be done and the problem still exists), though I understand the reason to set it, but I’d also expect to see a flawless staging version at this point, as well as the missing strings to be available on Verbatim in order to achieve that.

- Mentioning 2 other ones just in case: "Productivity Apps—Desktop Essentials" and "Games & Entertainment Apps—Desktop Essentials" appear in English in the header view after clicking on them (they might be shared but not handled properly in one case), though they may soon disappear when looking at staging. If not: clicking them on staging currently points to unloadable collections.

- Also and despite its 6 week presence on Verbatim, "all content" appears in English on mobile in the Show all content / websites / apps selector, both on prod and staging.

There’s also a low priority set on bug 1180839. I won’t nag about that, but even applying temporary fixes in l10n strings doesn’t always guarantee a short-term solution to be implemented due to uncertain push times (though in this case, staging shows it probably will). But then again, localizers need to jump in and a week at most may be considered too long by some.

Don’t get me wrong - it’s merely the process that’s bothering me. Strings may not appear localized while residing in Verbatim, disappear when they are, display wrong because of unthought l10n circumstances, have not been included (/tested) at new pushes, new/related/similar issues arise periodically, and issues are sometimes moved forward due to upcoming redesigns leaving them unsolved until then while new ones are to be expected, so this is more than just a glitch. Some people tend to talk about these issues rather than file bugs because of low response or reoccuring issues, and I don’t wanna go there. A full-proof l10n process is what we need to avoid all this, as well as the ability to fix things quickly and learn from them.

Comment 4

[Mark Striemer [:mstriemer]]

The "all content" string not being localised is a bug. We hit that with the compatibility filter before but missed that these strings were also affected. I filed bug 1182227 to resolve that.

Comment 5

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Thanks.

Not entirely unexpectedly, "Great Games", "Healthy Living", "Arts & Entertainment Spotlight" appear localized differently (which could be intentional or temporary), "Travel apps" and description and "Productivity Apps—Desktop Essentials" * and "Games & Entertainment Apps—Desktop Essentials" ** (* after clicking, ** also introducing an ampersand issue) still appear unlocalized after last Wednesday, and some of these strings haven’t shown up in Verbatim yet.

I suggest to reopen this bug until issues like these have really been fixed. I’m also sure people will appreciate it when things like these will no longer happen, i.o.w. it would be nice to see pushes only when l10 works as expected. Can this be guaranteed?

Comment 6

[David Durst [:ddurst]]

I need some more detail. We have lots of languages. In order to verify completion, could you please indicate either STR or the language(s) you've seen errors in?

Comment 7

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

On desktop, "Travel Apps" and its desription shows in English for any locale, and these strings haven’t shown up in Verbatim (nl and other locales). "Featured Travel Apps" however is.

Also for desktop, "Productivity Apps—Desktop Essentials" and "Games & Entertainment Apps—Desktop Essentials" have been in Verbatim for a while and I’m almost sure they were both OK on their separate pages after clicking them in the top "banner". When doing so now, their pages use English for at least nl, de and fr (tested by setting these languages as preferred language in FF), and the & is displayed as &, even in English. I’m afraid all this is not locale related.

I no longer see the "Painting Apps" and "Groundbreaking Games" strings onine, but they don’t seem to have ever been in Verbatim either. "Groundbreaking Apps" however is.

For the other 3 below "More to explore", I presume their localizations weren’t included in Verbatim (yet) as they are substituted by the older l10n strings for some reason? At least those are the ones displayed for other than the English locale, and their sources didn’t change in Verbatim.

Comment 8

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Sorry to mention but appearing since yesterday: "Adventure Games" + description on prod, not seen in Verbatim yet.

Comment 9

[sdevaney]

So for this type of featured content on Marketplace Home page (i.e. anything below the carousel), this copy has never been in Verbatim. It is localized outside of L10n due to the nature of rigorous production deadlines and the need to ensure all requisite languages (for FxOS devices) are accounted for. As such, it was determined we shouldn't tax our community contributors with such day-to-day, deadline-driven work.

Comment 10

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Thanks for that info. Although I understand and suspected this, maybe allowing l10n of such content after all to let locales "catch up" afterwards might be an option to consider, e.g. by falling back to English strings temporarily, probably requiring intermidiate / more frequent pushes or at least server-side pull actions from Verbatim, which might be useful for any MP section in general. It wouldn’t be an issue if such items are short-lived either, but if they are to stay for let’s say a month, it might be a waste not to localize them just because of the deadline to get them in. Leaving them out entirely for non-English locales on the other hand would probably be an option requiring more coding and cause users to complain about missing content. Oh well…

These items cover part of the issues mentioned here. I’m still worried about the "Productivity Apps—Desktop Essentials" and "Games & Entertainment Apps—Desktop Essentials" header strings (and ampersand issue) in particular, as a recent update didn’t change this and no new strings for those landed in Verbatim.

Comment 11

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Attachment: MPbanners.png

Still no change in the banner string items. What’s needed to fix this?

Comment 12

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

New regression: "View all" below any 6 apps in mobile start view is displayed in English.
No change in the Desktop Essentials strings.

Comment 13

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

New, not appearing localized on prod: "Enjoy instant fun with our handpicked selection of desktop web games you can play right in your browser."

My guess is that the Desktop Essentials strings are going to be removed. It would have been nice though if someone responded about the issue for those reported more than once.

Comment 14

[David Durst [:ddurst]]

The ampersand issue is being looked at. Scott has already responded about the Desktop Essentials issue. It would appear that the issues reported have already been responded to.

Comment 15

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

Thanks for notifying. As I read it, Scott only mentioned the (temporary) strings below the carousel that would not be eligible for l10n. That’s a different issue from the carousel itself as well as the items in it appearing localized in there properly, but not when clicked on, including the ampersand issue (while they used to be OK IIRC).

Comment 16

[Sara Todaro]

Attachment: Insert review window

In the attachment the floating window opening when a user clicks on "Write a review" in an app detail page. Two strings are displayed in English instead of the intended locale (in the current case Italian).