521989 - [fa] Choose search plug-ins for Fennec in Persian

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Mozilla Localizations :: fa / Persian, defect)

Description

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

You've indicated an interest in participating in the localization of mobile Firefox (aka Fennec). We want to ship Fennec with a good list of search engines for Persian. As the technical details of implementation are being worked on, we'd like to start the discussion about the choice of search engines. This bug is about agreeing on a set of search engines, and will not tackle the implementation (at least not yet).

First, the localization team and Staś will look at the market for the locale and come up with a good set of search providers. The guidelines for making recommendations are on https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Mobile/Productization. You're welcome to suggest engines already shipped in desktop Firefox for Persian, if they fit well in the categories outlined on the wiki.

For en-US, we currently use the following set, which may serve as an inspiration:
Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter.

Note that according to the guidelines, for some categories it may be better to leave them empty than to ship with en engine that's irrelevant or unavailable in your region.

After we decided on a particular search engine, we will need to test it in Fennec. You can test on a mobile device and on the desktop (download the builds from <http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/nightly/>). Staś will help with testing on a device, too. If the service works fine, Staś will contact the owner and ask for permission, and for specifics like proper search flags. $name, we'll likely need your help to at least get the contact information if we don't have them already.

We don't know the implementation details yet, so for now, please don't create patches nor land anything. We will keep you posted as we figure out the how's and when's.

Thanks.

Comment 1

[(no longer active)]

Twitter service is not available in Iran, and I'm not sure if there is any service on that scale in the Persian web community.  Amazon also is basically useless in Iran, because of payment and shipping hassles.  I would recommend Parseek though <http://www.parseek.com/>.

Behnam, what do you think?

Comment 2

[Behnam Esfahbod [:zwnj]]

It's fine with me.

Comment 3

[(no longer active)]

So, here is our suggestion for search engines in Persian Fennec:

Google, Wikipedia (fa), Yahoo, Parseek

Comment 4

[Seth Bindernagel]

Thanks Ehsan.  Stas and I will work on next steps.

Comment 5

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Ehsan: Is Parseek a general purpose portal? In that case, we could remove Yahoo! so tat we don't ship 3 general search engines.

Any local search engines similar to Yahoo! Local or Google Maps? Maybe Parseek offers such functionality?

Comment 6

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Attachment: Bootstrapping search engines with Google and localized Wikipedia

Here's a patch resetting the mobile/searchplugins/ directory to a minimal set of search engines that we would like to ship your locale with. Please read this comment carefully before you land this patch.

*Important*: There has been a change to how we use the  <Description/> elements present in the plug-ins (see bug 528655 and bug 529869). We want to emphasize that the search is integrated with the browser to better reflect what a search plugin is and what it does. You will need to edit the Wikipedia plug-in before you commit this patch. Please read <https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Integrated_Search_Instructions> for detailed instructions.

For Google, we don't have to copy the XML file to your mobile/searchplugins/ directory. Plugins identical to en-US are pulled from source automatically. It's enough to put the engine's name in list.txt for this to work (which I did). I also updated the Wikipedia plug-in to use a bigger icon, see bug 517997 for details.

Please edit the Wikipedia plug-in and commit this patch before you opt-in in the mozilla.dev.l10n newsgroup. Opt-ins without this patch will not be taken. This does not mean that we don't want to include other search engines. On the contrary, the work and the discussion will continue in this bug until we choose a good set of search engines for your locale. Then, you will be able to opt in again, so that in the final release we include more search engines than the mineral set from this patch.

This patch is simply meant to reset your mobile/searchplugins directory so that we keep the repository clean and happy.

Thanks for understanding!

Comment 7

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Ehsan: Is Parseek a general purpose portal? In that case, we could remove
> Yahoo! so tat we don't ship 3 general search engines.

Parseek does mainly two things: it's a Persian search engine, and it's a news aggregator in Persian, so I don't think it can replace Yahoo.

I guess the nearest thing to a Persian portal that we can use instead of Yahoo is http://www.iran.ir/.

> Any local search engines similar to Yahoo! Local or Google Maps? Maybe Parseek
> offers such functionality?

We have a web-based searchable map of Tehran, is that an appropriate replacement for Google Maps?  I don't know of any local search service in Persian.

BTW, your patch did not add Parseek.  Should I add it (and possibly the ones that I mentioned in this comment) myself?

Comment 8

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > Ehsan: Is Parseek a general purpose portal? In that case, we could remove
> > Yahoo! so tat we don't ship 3 general search engines.
> 
> Parseek does mainly two things: it's a Persian search engine, and it's a news
> aggregator in Persian, so I don't think it can replace Yahoo.
> 
> I guess the nearest thing to a Persian portal that we can use instead of Yahoo
> is http://www.iran.ir/.

Ok, I see. I think Parseek will be fine in that case.

> > Any local search engines similar to Yahoo! Local or Google Maps? Maybe Parseek
> > offers such functionality?
> 
> We have a web-based searchable map of Tehran, is that an appropriate
> replacement for Google Maps?  I don't know of any local search service in
> Persian.

Any links? :) I think though that Tehran-only would be a bit too limiting. We can also leave this category empty, that's not a problem.

Any suggestions for the social search? If not Twitter, maybe there are other blogging/micro-blogging websites/aggregators that we could use? Or social networks?

> BTW, your patch did not add Parseek.  Should I add it (and possibly the ones
> that I mentioned in this comment) myself?

That was done on purpose. It was meant to bootstrap the mobile/searchplugins directory with the minimal set of engines. Let's work on Parseek and other candidates in this bug. But, please don't land Parseek right now yet, we first need their permission. Ehsan, would you mind contacting them and asking if they're OK that we include their search plugin in Fennec? Or, if you find any contact info, I can reach out to them, too. (a whois lookup gives me the following name: Alireza Shirazi, should I write to them?).

So right now, the list is:

- google
- fa.wikipedia
- parseek

and if we can find something local or social, I'd add it to the list. If not, let's go with yahoo and close the list at 4 engines. 

Thoughts?

Comment 9

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > (In reply to comment #5)
> > > Ehsan: Is Parseek a general purpose portal? In that case, we could remove
> > > Yahoo! so tat we don't ship 3 general search engines.
> > 
> > Parseek does mainly two things: it's a Persian search engine, and it's a news
> > aggregator in Persian, so I don't think it can replace Yahoo.
> > 
> > I guess the nearest thing to a Persian portal that we can use instead of Yahoo
> > is http://www.iran.ir/.
> 
> Ok, I see. I think Parseek will be fine in that case.

Great.

> > > Any local search engines similar to Yahoo! Local or Google Maps? Maybe Parseek
> > > offers such functionality?
> > 
> > We have a web-based searchable map of Tehran, is that an appropriate
> > replacement for Google Maps?  I don't know of any local search service in
> > Persian.
> 
> Any links? :) I think though that Tehran-only would be a bit too limiting. We
> can also leave this category empty, that's not a problem.

The link is <http://maps.tehran.ir/>.  Let me know what you think.

> Any suggestions for the social search? If not Twitter, maybe there are other
> blogging/micro-blogging websites/aggregators that we could use? Or social
> networks?

I don't know of any Persian social network sites that are as big as western ones.  There are a few small ones, but most of them are just blocked by the government as soon as they get some attention, so I don't think we can come up with an alternative in this category.

> > BTW, your patch did not add Parseek.  Should I add it (and possibly the ones
> > that I mentioned in this comment) myself?
> 
> That was done on purpose. It was meant to bootstrap the mobile/searchplugins
> directory with the minimal set of engines.

So, I landed it on both 1.9.2 and l10n-central.  I hope I didn't mess anything up besides the commit message...

> Let's work on Parseek and other
> candidates in this bug. But, please don't land Parseek right now yet, we first
> need their permission. Ehsan, would you mind contacting them and asking if
> they're OK that we include their search plugin in Fennec? Or, if you find any
> contact info, I can reach out to them, too. (a whois lookup gives me the
> following name: Alireza Shirazi, should I write to them?).

IIRC I had contacted Alireza before, so I can do it.  I'll CC you on the mail.

> So right now, the list is:
> 
> - google
> - fa.wikipedia
> - parseek
> 
> and if we can find something local or social, I'd add it to the list. If not,
> let's go with yahoo and close the list at 4 engines. 
> 
> Thoughts?

I think we can go with these and add Yahoo to the list, and that should be fine for now.  We can always revise the list later if a social site shows up, right?

Comment 10

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

(In reply to comment #9)
> So, I landed it on both 1.9.2 and l10n-central.  I hope I didn't mess anything
> up besides the commit message...

All is good, thanks Ehsan :)

> > Let's work on Parseek and other
> > candidates in this bug. But, please don't land Parseek right now yet, we first
> > need their permission. Ehsan, would you mind contacting them and asking if
> > they're OK that we include their search plugin in Fennec? Or, if you find any
> > contact info, I can reach out to them, too. (a whois lookup gives me the
> > following name: Alireza Shirazi, should I write to them?).
> 
> IIRC I had contacted Alireza before, so I can do it.  I'll CC you on the mail.

Thanks. No news from Alireza so far, so we'll probably have to wait with including parsec until after 1.0.

> I think we can go with these and add Yahoo to the list, and that should be fine
> for now.  We can always revise the list later if a social site shows up, right?

Should this be yahoo.com from en-US? In that case, can you please create a patch adding "yahoo" to list.txt (the xml file is not needed).

Comment 11

[(no longer active)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Thanks. No news from Alireza so far, so we'll probably have to wait with
> including parsec until after 1.0.

yes, that looks to be the case.

> Should this be yahoo.com from en-US? In that case, can you please create a
> patch adding "yahoo" to list.txt (the xml file is not needed).

Yes.  I landed yahoo into list.txt:

http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/fa/rev/9ea2a9adb3b3
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n-mozilla-1.9.2/fa/rev/17fffc2ff2a8

I think with this change, the fa 1.9.2 mobile tree is safe for opting in, is that correct?

Comment 12

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

(In reply to comment #11)
 
> Yes.  I landed yahoo into list.txt:
> 
> http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/fa/rev/9ea2a9adb3b3
> http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n-mozilla-1.9.2/fa/rev/17fffc2ff2a8
> 
> I think with this change, the fa 1.9.2 mobile tree is safe for opting in, is
> that correct?

Yes :)

Thanks, Ehsan!

Comment 13

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

(In reply to comment #9)

> I think we can go with these and add Yahoo to the list, and that should be fine
> for now.  We can always revise the list later if a social site shows up, right?

I realized I hadn't answered this question: yes, of course, we can work on adding new engines after the 1.0 release.

Comment 14

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

Old bug - but we're hoping to ship Persian soon :)
Are the search engines present right now for Persian on Android still relevant? Do you need to make any udpates? 
If so please let me know and we'll probably work of a newer bug to avoid any confusion at this point.
thanks :)

Comment 15

[Reza Habibi (rehb)]

(In reply to Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - use Need Info] from comment #14)
> Old bug - but we're hoping to ship Persian soon :)
> Are the search engines present right now for Persian on Android still
> relevant? Do you need to make any udpates? 
> If so please let me know and we'll probably work of a newer bug to avoid any
> confusion at this point.
> thanks :)

Hi, I've just checked the last version of Desktop and Andriod and it's fine.
Also, I will ask about the new suggestion from others and if they have a new suggestion I will get back to you about create a new bug.
Thanks.


Desktop :
- Google 
- Yahoo
- Bing 
- Amazon
- DuckDuckGo

Mobile:
- Google 
- Yahoo
- Wikipedia

Comment 16

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

I didn't realize this bug had a patch that landed (which is logical since there are search plugins present for Persian). Gonna start out fresh from the start then and open a new bug for this :) thanks!