375067 - Can we support localized URLs in the places backend?

Status: RESOLVED INACTIVE

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, defect)

Description

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

I was thinking about how to better bootstrap bookmarks/places in terms of URLs, as bookmarks.html isn't really doing the best for us in terms of users migrating to different languages and stuff.

Could we get URL entries into the places DB that get URLs either postprocessed (I'd favour this, toolkit's nsURLFormatter would be our friend) or from a properties file, and the title from a properties file?

This is somewhat an updated version of my thinking in bug 349523, and to create a backend feature so that the localization of a URL could happen at runtime, rather than at build time/profile creation.

To clarify, I think there should be bootstrap URLs for places that are locked into one particular language and set up at profile creation, in particular the default feed. For URLs like About Mozilla or Support, though, I could see a case for having them adjust their URL and title to the currently installed language.

This would only impact new profiles, too, migration of existing profiles should just import the existing bookmarks.html.

CCing Basil for feedback on the sidegrading performance here.

Comment 1

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

This doesn't block bug 349523.

Comment 2

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Dietrich, if this missed the train, or will, would you WONTFIX it?

Just cleaning up my bug list ;-)

Comment 3

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

we could implement a filtering approach, where URIs are passed through registered filters after being pulled from the db, and before being processed in any other way. another possibility could be a localization-specific approach, where localizable URIs are annotated as such.

each approach does have perf concerns, as we'd have to check every single URI coming out of the db, for every single request.

Comment 4

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

What do you think about using urns? Something like urn:x-moz-bookmark:getting-started, which a urn protocol handler could map to a url format and replace, and then redirect?

The only thing that I'm unsure of is how to handle the titles. Not that I'm dead-on sure that we should.

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bug 451915 - move Firefox/Places bugs to Firefox/Bookmarks and History. Remove all bugspam from this move by filtering for the string "places-to-b-and-h".

In Thunderbird 3.0b, you do that as follows:
Tools | Message Filters
Make sure the correct account is selected. Click "New"
Conditions: Body   contains   places-to-b-and-h
Change the action to "Delete Message".
Select "Manually Run" from the dropdown at the top.
Click OK.

Select the filter in the list, make sure "Inbox" is selected at the bottom, and click "Run Now". This should delete all the bugspam. You can then delete the filter.

Gerv

Comment 6

[Aakash Desai [:aakashd]]

What about checking the locale to see if it's been changed and having some sort of UI, at start-up, that tells the user its translating those places strings? It can be preffed on/off, but at least the perf hit won't be felt by the user during their browsing experience.

Comment 7

[BMO Automation]

Per policy at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Bug_Triage/Projects/Bug_Handling/Bug_Husbandry#Inactive_Bugs. If this bug is not an enhancement request or a bug not present in a supported release of Firefox, then it may be reopened.