122071 - Switching language versions of browser should work

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: XUL, defect)

Description

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Ok, this is a problem I saw with Netscape 6, but I think it would happen with a
localized version of Mozilla either.

With a Linux distribution came Netscape 6.1 (english) preinstalled.
I had already used that english version and thus had a profile already.

I removed the old browser and installed Netscape 6.21 (german).
When I started the browser, nearly all text in the UI was empty, the menu bar
was completely blank.

However, when testing with a new profile, everything worked.


Expected behaviour: It should be possible to use any profile with any language
version, without special preparation.


Further analysis showed, there is a file {PROFILEDIR}/chrome/user-locales.rdf.
After creating a new profile with the german version, copying that file over
from the new profile to the old profile, fixed the problem. However, no user
would ever be able to fix that problem. 99.9% of users would lose their profile
in a browser upgrade.


Expected behaviour: The profile should at most store a language preference. If
during startup the prefered language is not available, this should be detected,
and the environment should fall back to an available language.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Over to Localization

Comment 2

[rchen]

-> tao. 

Comment 3

[tao]

Chrome registry should fail over to a (vesion) matching locale provider when the 
user profile's selection is not available.

Comment 4

[xspuente]

This is something that should be implemented. When installing Mozilla,
independently of the default language of that localized build, you should be
asked which language do you prefer Mozilla to work with. The default should be
the default for that version (let's say en-US), but you should be able to see a
list of languages from a locale provider. If you decide to install German
(de-AT) as your default language, Mozilla should fetch it from a database, and
tell you if there is a *.xpi package matching your version (0.9.8 or whatever)
that can be installed. If you are not on line, that couldn't be done, and the
default language should be applied. That should work for the Create Profile too.
If you are installing from a CD-ROM from your ISP, you don't care about size,
and probably they provide a couple of languages, although it is posible that
more languages were available after the CD was burned. This way Mozilla would be
more easily customizable.

Comment 5

[Peter Trudelle]

nsbeta1- per Nav triage team, ->tao per hyatt, who is working on another project
(and thinks tao is the best person to fix this).

Comment 6

[tao]

-->dbragg

Comment 7

[dbragg]

The chrome system has changed significantly since the 6.2 series, especially in
regard to the user's profile.
Jimmy could you see if this is still happening?  

Comment 8

[Jimmy Uen]

Tested with N7.0PR1 English and Japanese version, created a English profile with
English client. Then run the Japanese client with the English profile, the
client UI display properly in Japanese.

Marking WFM