1236366 - Encourage dictionary authors to expand SeaMonkey compatibility version range

Status: ASSIGNED

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Rainer Bielefeld]

Currently the dictionary download pages urgently need some maintenance. On the German page very most Language packs are  missing, and most dictionaries show a message "Not available for SeaMonkey 2.39". That is not a real problem, most ones (probably all) should work fine with Version range adaption by our Add-On-converter at <http://addonconverter.fotokraina.com>. But for new users who want to try SeaMonkey that looks deterring.

So we should encourage the authors to adapt the version range for SeaMonkey.

Steps how to reproduce the problem with  SeaMonkey German 2.39 final Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:42.0 from official download area)  Gecko/20100101  Firefox/42.0  Build 20151103191810  (Classic Theme) on German WIN7 64bit:

1. 'Rightclick Comment field here → Languages → Download additional
    dictionaries ...'
   » Dictionaries overview WEB-page will appear in your language
2. Open arbitrary Dictionary download pages for dictionaries
   » Most ones will show "not Available for SeaMonkey 2.xx

Test proceeding
---------------
Most simple: If you already use a current dictionary from the list, add you experience in User story under "... successful" or "... failed" (and  remove from other headline area if necessary)

If you want to test a different one:

Preparation: Install Add-On-Converterd-On-Convter-Add-On from <https://github.com/lemon-juice/AMO-Browsing-for-SeaMonkey>
Do a Backup of your user profile!

A) With any SeaMonkey-Version 2.39 or later
   Visit download page for arbitrary dictionary what has not yet been 
   tested by 'Rightclick Comment field here → Languages → 
   Download additional dictionaries ...'
    →  install dictionary (via converter, if "not available for ...)
B) Do tests (in Before: add under "user story" here under 
   "Test in Progress")
B1) Installation ok?
B2) Open Wikipedia Page for country of language of test dictionary
    in Language of dictionary in SeaMonkey HTML Composer
    Spell check correct? (some words underlined, most not)
    any other problems?
B3) Do some edits in page contents
B4) Keep dictionary installed for few days, have it active if you do not
    need a dictionary.
c) Leave your results here /with SM User Agent string), 
   tell us if you want to contact dictionary
   author yourself (via his support page, not with a user rating) or 
   whether I should contact the author.

That's all, I think 1 single test / dictionary should be enough, I do not expect problems.

Comment 1

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

At some point (out of the top of my head I think it was at the time of Firefox 4 / SeaMonkey 2.1), the Toolkit Add-on Manager subsystem implemented a "default-to-compatible" feature. This means that by default, any add-on whose maxVersion exceeds that value will still be accepted by all later versions of the same browser and/or mailer.

The add-on author can opt out of this feature by means of a setting in install.rdf, and then the maxVersion will be strictly enforced. For instance, Lightning uses this setting, because each Lightning version can only be paired with a mailer having the exact same XPCOM version and that means the same Gecko version.

However, AMO pages don't take this feature into account when deciding if your present app is supported by an extension. They do when printing which range of versions the extension supports. So if at bottom of the AMO extension details page you see "SeaMonkey 2.5 and later" it does not use strict version checking; if it says "SeaMonkey 2.6 - 2.10" it does. This is IMHO an AMO bug but they dont look like in a hurry to fix it, and with the new MoCo policy towards comm-central… 'Nuff said.

If you try to install into SeaMonkey an add-on which does not use strict checking, but whose maxVersion is less than your current version, you may also get a spurious pop-up saying that you need to use "Firefox 10 or later". I can't find any rhyme or reason to that warning.

AMO has however another way to keep up with evolving browser versions: at each new Firefox version, they take note of which APIs have been changed or removed and they up the "accepted maxVersion" of every add-on that does not use them. They don't make any change in install.rdf for this, but they change what they reply if, for instance, Firefox asks them "Is version 1.2.3.4 of extension Foolish Bar with  Bass Music supported by Firefox 47.0a1 ?" I don't know if (and don't think that) they do the same for MailNews extensions.

Dictionaries, however, are in general slow-evolving software components, so I expect them to install and run cleanly. If the language in question has recently undergone an important language reform, the dictionary may have become out-of-date on linguistic grounds but I still expect it to work correctly from a software point of view.

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Oh, and BTW, AMO will not let an extension author set its maxVersion to an appVersion not yet built. For instance, at the moment the current Trunk versions of Firefox and SeaMonkey are 46.0a1 and 2.43a1 respectively, so they won't let you upload an add-on with a maxVersion set to Firefox 47, SeaMonkey 2.44, or anything higher. Maybe they'll let you set Firefox 46.* and SeaMonkey 2.43.* but nothing higher.

Comment 3

[Rainer Bielefeld]

Author updated Corretor para Português de Portugal 16.1.3.6 to Version 16.1.9.5
Test page for text in language <https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal>
Test Results:
- Listed for SeaMonkey:  
- Installation: ok, no warning
- Funktion
  --Browser: ok
  --Email-composition: ok
  --HTML-Composer: ok
  --Chatzilla: ok

Comment 4

[Andrea Govoni]

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/42.0 SeaMonkey/2.39

Italian dictionary "Dizionario italiano 3.4.0"[1] works without problems.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/it/seamonkey/addon/dizionario-italiano/