201853 - cannot choose locale for UI at configure time (defaults to en-US)

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: Build Config, defect)

Description

[Ben Fowler]

User-Agent:       iCAB/2.9(Macintosh; U; PPC; compatible; Mozilla/7.01; MSIE 8.0)
Build Identifier: 

My build identifier is something like

Mozilla 1.4b ... ( ...; en-US;  ...) Gecko/...

I would like to be able to configure the build system to produce a build with some other
default langauge, in my case, en-GB.

I can't believe that it not possible, and that everyone who wants a browser to default
to de-AT or fr-CA or  el-GR or whatever, must first build an en-US version.
See <URL: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=3D84C8D5.3050700%40gmx.de > for an apparent proff of existence.

<URL: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp_status.html > refers to non-English
builds, but I can' find the tern used anywhere else, exempli gratia 
<URL: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Mozilla+%22non-English+build%22&btnG=Google+Search >:

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Confgure a build tree with any  published variant of .mozconfig
2. Build
3.

Actual Results:  
The UI language is set to en-US, as can be seen in config.status, with no obvious
way to configure this


I would expect the information I am looking for to be reachable from 
<URL:  http://www.mozilla.org/build/ > (which appears to have no TITLE btw),
or perhaps the Developer sidebar needs a section 'Configure the Source' between
'Download the Source'  and 'Build It', or  perhaps the world needs a HOWTO for
standard builds similar to <URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/other-formats/html_single/Mozilla-Optimization.html >

Comment 1

[hacker formerly known as [e-mail]]

First, do not file website documentation bugs on the Browser product.  We have a
separate Documentation product for that. 

> I would like to be able to configure the build system to produce a build with
> some other default langauge, in my case, en-GB.

Not possible.  Those UI translations are not in the default tree.  There's
already a bug open on that issue, iirc.

> I can't believe that it not possible, and that everyone who wants a browser to
> default to de-AT or fr-CA or  el-GR or whatever, must first build an en-US
version.

Afaik, that is the case as only the en-US files are checked into the tree.  I
don't handle any l10n issues but you've seen
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/l10n/mlp.html .

In general, the build system knows nothing about locales or charsets.  The en-US
references in config.status are in the pathnames to Makefiles that are
generated.  And those only exist because of the jar manifests in those subdirs.  

Since what you are ask for to be documented isn't a supported build feature,
there won't be information about it at http://www.mozilla.org/build/ though I
will make a note to add the lack of support for this feature to the FAQ.

Comment 2

[Ben Fowler]

Thank you for your help.
It wasn't a website bug. Whilst I was looking for documentation on how to do a thing
I wanted to do; I noted where it best fitted, id est where I had looked. I am not in position
to say whether the website is defective. You, though, now know that had the page I
referred to contained your paragraph starting: "Afaik, that is the case ..." then I would
not have needed to file the bug. You decide whether the website (or any other documentation)
is sufficiently complete, given the rapid developments in the project and competing
claims for resources and attention.
When I checked for a previous bug, I entered 'Language' and got 120 bugs back, none
of which seemed to relate; of course language can refer to Web page language and
computer language. I tried 'UI language' and got nine bugs back, (not, oddly enough, 
currently including mine) and checked them all and none hand anything to do with non-English
builds. The duplicate is hiding under a bushel ...
My purpose in wanting to do this build apart from ordinary pride in achievement
was to regulary use a variant of the build process to shake out bugs.