Closed Bug 586307 Opened 14 years ago Closed 13 years ago

[hy-AM] Search engine setup for Firefox for Armenian.

Categories

(Mozilla Localizations :: hy-AM / Armenian, defect, P5)

defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: Pike, Assigned: armenzg)

References

()

Details

(Keywords: productization)

Attachments

(2 files, 2 obsolete files)

We want to ship Firefox 4.0 a good list of search engines for Armenian. 

We're going to work towards this in three phases. First, the localization team and Stas (Stas Malolepszy) will look at the market for the language and come up with a good set of search providers. Armen, we'll need your input on this, the guidelines for making recommendations are on <https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Firefox/Productization>. 

For en-US, we currently use this set, to which we can fall back in the case of lacking localized alternatives:
Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Answers, CC, eBay, Wikipedia

After we decided on a particular search engine, Stas will contact the owner and ask for permission, and for specifics like proper search flags. Armen, we'll likely need your help to at least get the contact information.

Once we have a specification on what the searchengines for Armenian should look like, the localization team and Stas will work on an implementation on that. This should happen by the localization team creating and attaching patches for the desired changes, and requesting review from Stas. After a successful review, the localization team will land them.

Please don't commit any modifications in browser/searchplugins to the hg repository without a patch reviewed by Stas, Axel or someone else appointed by Stas or SethB. The data here is sensitive to users and our search partners, thus the extra care here.
Hi,
From a previous email conversation with Robert he said the following:
> For search engines I think we must leave as is, google, yahoo, bing, Wikipedia
> and for e-commerce I think ebay is the most popular here. 

Would the English set be good as he mentions in his email?


For the curious, Google is now in Armenian (it even has an Armenian keyboard widget to input!!!):
http://www.google.am/webhp?hl=hy

There is also Wikipedia in Armenian:
http://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D4%B3%D5%AC%D5%AD%D5%A1%D5%BE%D5%B8%D6%80_%D4%B7%D5%BB (oh noes the pasting changes it to hexadecimal!)
Hi,
I have been using Alexa for few hours and after a lot of research here's what I have discovered.

* Google - #1 (in Armenian)
* Yahoo - #7
* Amazon - #45
* Answers - not in top 100 for Armenia
* CC - not in top 100 for Armenia (but I have seen Armenian sites use it)
* eBay - #22
* Wikipedia - #11 (in Armenian)

This is my proposal (based on research and input from localizers):
* Google (the Armenian version), Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia (the Armenian version)
* bing (as it has #64 and has been mentioned by localizers)
* answers (do not include it)
* CC (I have no strong opinion about it)

Stas how does this look like? Shall I follow up on a patch.

There is a local search engine but it is poor and not well known. It doesn't even have enough alexa stats.

PS = I can provide access to my research data if wanted
(In reply to comment #2)
> This is my proposal (based on research and input from localizers):
> * Google (the Armenian version), Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia (the Armenian
> version)
> * bing (as it has #64 and has been mentioned by localizers)
> * answers (do not include it)
> * CC (I have no strong opinion about it)
> 
> Stas how does this look like? Shall I follow up on a patch.
> 
> There is a local search engine but it is poor and not well known. It doesn't
> even have enough alexa stats.

With Google, Yahoo, and Bing, you have 3 general purpose search engines.  We like to have 2.  We save the remaining 4 spots for 2 e-commerce (in your case Amazon and eBay) and 2 specific-interest search plugins.  It might be nice to find a local specific-interest search plugin like wikipedia to include in place of either Bing or Yahoo.  Any ideas?
(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > This is my proposal (based on research and input from localizers):
> > * Google (the Armenian version), Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia (the Armenian
> > version)
> > * bing (as it has #64 and has been mentioned by localizers)
> > * answers (do not include it)
> > * CC (I have no strong opinion about it)
> > 
> > Stas how does this look like? Shall I follow up on a patch.
> > 
> > There is a local search engine but it is poor and not well known. It doesn't
> > even have enough alexa stats.
> 
> With Google, Yahoo, and Bing, you have 3 general purpose search engines.  We
> like to have 2.  We save the remaining 4 spots for 2 e-commerce (in your case
> Amazon and eBay) and 2 specific-interest search plugins.  It might be nice to
> find a local specific-interest search plugin like wikipedia to include in place
> of either Bing or Yahoo.  Any ideas?

OK
* For general: Google and Yahoo
* For e-commerce: Amazon and eBay

For specific-interest there is http://www.hsearch.am/web.php?l=arm which is an Armenian search engine.
There is also http://www.armenian.com/ which is Armenian Yellow pages.
There is also http://armsport.am which is sports related.

Which of these would meet the criteria? I have tried reading the documentation but I am still not sure of which sites would fit the description.
Would Armenian music or radio search engines work too?
At this point, it is a bit of a judgment call.  I would lean to the hsearch and armenian.com providers, and not the sports one.  Which of the hsearch and armenian.com has the most traction, do you think?  Since hsearch is an Armenian search engine, I wonder if it would be best?  Tell me what you think.  :)
Let's get this going again.
stas what will you need from me? I am going to get in touch with the people of hsearch.am if that is what you need me to do.

http://www.hsearch.am/?l=arm is our best bet at this time.
I have looked for alternatives but it was leading to nowhere.

So the list should be:
* For general: Google and Yahoo
* For e-commerce: Amazon and eBay
* Specific-interest: http://www.hsearch.am/?l=arm
Whiteboard: [waiting on reply]
Armen, please get in touch with hsearch.  And, what about an Armenian search plugin for Wikipedia.

Here is a good reference:

http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/es-ES/file/default/browser/searchplugins/wikipedia-es.xml
Whiteboard: [waiting on reply]
Here is what it is needed.

Does it require changes to list.txt? Like in http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/es-ES/rev/6bdc7b77a7b6?

I will get in touch with hsearch.am
Assignee: nobody → armenzg
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Attachment #515622 - Flags: review?(sethb)
Attachment #515622 - Flags: review?(sethb) → review?(l10n)
Comment on attachment 515622 [details] [diff] [review]
[hy-AM] add wikipedia-hy.xml

let's keep this review request on seth for the time being.
Attachment #515622 - Flags: review?(l10n) → review?(sethb)
Comment on attachment 515622 [details] [diff] [review]
[hy-AM] add wikipedia-hy.xml

This looks good.  You're going to want to amend your list.txt so this gets picked up.  The list.txt will need to removed the en-US wikipedia and add this one, which you've named "wikipedia-hy".
Attachment #515622 - Flags: review?(sethb) → review+
Priority: -- → P5
I wouldn't call a bug that is required to get you out of beta a P5, really.

We're still on trying to get hsearch in here to close this out?
I recently worked on "My bugs" query so I can get visibility on bugs assigned from other components. I used P5 just to put it below my releng bugs. Now that I can see the bug I can actually think of it and hope to fix it.
Armen,

Let's get the party started. From what I read in this bug, we want:

General: Google, Yahoo
Commerce: Amazon, Ebay
Locale specific: HSearch and Wikipedia-hy

If I'm mistaken, please correct me.

For one, you should commit the wikipedia-hy.xml to broser/searchplugins/ as you already have positive review from Seth.

As for the locale specific search engine, we'll need approval from HSearch to use their services. If you already have that, please email that to me(milos@mozilla.com) as we need to have that on file.

Also, I've found orangearmenia.am as an e-commerce website in Armenia. Do you think it's good enough to replace Amazon, for instance? I see ebay being used more than amazon in Armenia, so that's why I ask.

On the other hand, http://eshop.orangearmenia.am/shop/asp/home/ is, at least per Alexa, not as popular as ebay and amazon.

So, just give it a thought, and comment back here.

Once we're all good with search plugins, you should edit the /browser/searchplugins/list.txt file. As Seth already commented, put `wikipedia-hy` in list.txt(that would refer to wikipedia-hy.xml). When you edit list.txt file, please attach a patch here in this bug, and flag me for a review.

Once we do all that, we can close this bug.
OK I have landed the wikipedia change:
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/hy-AM/rev/018f4d8684ad
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/hy-AM/rev/11ef0e5d70af

I will consult the rest of the localizers on what you mention.

WRT hsearch.am I have looked in my inbox and they never replied to my email. I will think of an alternative and/or try again.
Summary: [hy-AM] Search engine setup for Firefox 4.0 for Armenian. → [hy-AM] Search engine setup for Firefox for Armenian.
Hi Milos,
This is what we have come up with:

General: Google in Armenian, Yahoo
Commerce: list.am (#18), Ebay (#22)
Locale specific: Circle.am (#19) and Wikipedia in Armenian

List.am is like craiglist for Armenia.
Circle.am which is a catalog for Armenian websites.

We will be getting in touch with those 2 sites. Please let me know if our proposal is good.

Orange is of the France telecom so we discarded it.
Armen,

Given that you don't think you have really popular search engine(general nor e-commerce) in your locale, I think it's OK to go with site directories instead. I believe Ebay and Wikipedia are good back-ups for list.am and circle, respectively.

So, yes, please go ahead and contact providers asking them if it's OK to use their services in Firefox Armenian builds. Once you get them, please forward them to mdinic@mozilla.com

It would be nice to have those conversations in English, but if not possible, Armenian is ok too.

Axel, any thoughts on this?
Sounds good.

As a follow-up, if we get permission, we also want the providers to confirm which search urls to use exactly. In particular, if they want some parameters to do metrics.
Hi Milos,
I have send an email to circle.am as we are for sure interested on using them.

With list.am we still have some concerns of the quality of their content and would like to use Amazon. I feel that we can add them later if we get a big support of our users.

Milos,
One of our tech supporters has provided a customized ebay search query for a better Armenian experience. How does this look? Do you think we can use it?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14640711/ebay-us-available-to-armenia.xml

I have also passed along the request that Axel asks.
Armen,

that plugin may not work in Firefox, as that's OpenSearch plugin tags I see there, even though Firefox search plugins are based on OpenSearch plugins. There's an old doc about coding plugins at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Creating_OpenSearch_plugins_for_Firefox . It may be not be the most up-to-date one, but it should give you a good picture on what a plugin.xml should look like. Besides that, you can take a look at, ie. http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/es-ES/file/c6afad5c21b8/browser/searchplugins/eBay-es.xml

You can also test your own search plugins by copying them over to Firefox profile folder. But please, before you start testing, make sure you're using a clean profile, so as that we can make sure nothing else is interfering with it.

Now, that aside, I'd like to know a bit more about those search parameters in that query. I tried it, and it works, but I didn't see anything specially related to Armenian market. In case I oversaw something, please correct me.
NOTE: Armen forwarded circle.am approval to me. We can include it into default search engines for hy-AM.
That ebay query puzzles me as well. Anyway, modifications to ebay plugins should get a review by Kev, too.

PS: We support the opensearch tags in both the original and our namespace. We usually stick to ours throughout the plugin, but both are valid.
I will check the plugin and talk with Kev if needed tomorrow.
I asked Andranik few days about the comment wrt the ebay plugin but he has not yet got back to me.

The people from circle.am replied saying to use these options for searches:
> Here is the URL for searching within the Rating:
> http://www.circle.am/?go=search&rsk=KEYWORDS
>
> In the case you want to use search.am then here is the URL:
> http://www.search.am/?rsk=KEYWORDS
(In reply to Armen Zambrano G. [:armenzg] - Release Engineer from comment #22)
> I will check the plugin and talk with Kev if needed tomorrow.
> I asked Andranik few days about the comment wrt the ebay plugin but he has
> not yet got back to me.

Armen, if you want to, we can have regular ebay search, without any special search parameter, that is. After that, you can file another bug once you find a better way to search ebay.

> The people from circle.am replied saying to use these options for searches:
> > Here is the URL for searching within the Rating:
> > http://www.circle.am/?go=search&rsk=KEYWORDS
> >
> > In the case you want to use search.am then here is the URL:
> > http://www.search.am/?rsk=KEYWORDS

For former, that should be something like:

<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.circle.am/">
    <Param name="go" value="search" />
    <Param name="rsk" value="{searchTerms}" />
</Url>
We can leave the custom eBay one for another bug.
Attachment #568654 - Flags: review?(milos)
Comment on attachment 568654 [details] [diff] [review]
add circle-am and remove answers and creativecommons

Review of attachment 568654 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: browser/searchplugins/circle-am.xml
@@ +1,4 @@
> +<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.circle.am/">
> +    <Param name="go" value="search" />
> +    <Param name="rsk" value="{searchTerms}" />
> +</Url>

What I meant by that example in my previous comment was just a part of the whole plugin. You can see more info on creating OpenSearch plugins at https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Creating_OpenSearch_plugins_for_Firefox . Note that we're using pretty much the same syntax for Firefox search plugins, and you can see one example at http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/bs/raw-file/ddafdbf6335c/browser/searchplugins/pik.xml .

<Url> part that you put in circle-am.xml looks good, based on your previous comment.

Also, once you finish the search plugin, you should create a new profile, close firefox, put circle-am.xml in your profile folder, and than run Firefox with that profile. Then you should be able to see it in search engines list.

::: browser/searchplugins/list.txt
@@ +2,5 @@
>  eBay
>  google
>  wikipedia-hy
>  yahoo
> +circle-am

This looks good. Also, are we abandoning list.am? If so, than it's good.
Attachment #568654 - Flags: review?(milos) → review-
I tried testing this by creating "searchplugins" inside of the profile folder (this wasn't mentioned on your nistructions) but I believe I also have to modify search.json for it to show up on the list of search engines.

I haven't been able to test this. Can I please have some help?
Attachment #568654 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #571713 - Flags: review?(milos)
Comment on attachment 571713 [details] [diff] [review]
add circle-am and remove answers and creativecommons

Review of attachment 571713 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: browser/searchplugins/circle-am.xml
@@ +1,1 @@
> +<SearchPlugin>

This is the reason you can't get it working when you put it in your profile folder(ie. ~/.mozilla/firefox/Armenian.xxxxxxx/searchplugins/). Try using <SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/"> instead, as described on https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Creating_OpenSearch_plugins_for_Firefox

@@ +1,3 @@
> +<SearchPlugin>
> +  <ShortName>Circle.am</ShortName>
> +  <Description></Description>

This shouldn't be empty. Please add some description between opening and closing Description tags. You may use the website slogan, or some other one-liner that describes the nature of the search engine in a few to several words.

@@ +4,5 @@
> +  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
> +  <Image width="16" height="16">
> +  data:image/x-icon;base64,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
> +  </Image>
> +  <SearchForm>http://www.circle.am/</SearchForm>

This should be the URL to the search page. I tried to find it on circle.am, but it doesn't seem to have one. So I guess this is OK.

::: browser/searchplugins/list.txt
@@ -1,2 @@
>  amazondotcom
> -answers

As per IRC, please leave Amazon in, until we find a better replacement.
Attachment #571713 - Flags: review?(milos) → review-
This sucks. circle.am is not really a search engine but a catalogue. The only searching it does is through search.am which is a custom google search.

Let's go back to the whiteboard.

We only lack one specific search with wikipedia-hy (BTW is not working).

I propose:
- news.am (#9 alexa)
- 1in.am (#12 alexa)
- tert.am (#15 alexa)
- list.am (#18 alexa)

I will email the localizers.
The conversation ended up with list.am as the winner since news sites can be politically involved and there is no reason to treat them as search engines.

I will try to fix this bug this week and figure out why wikipedia-hy-AM was not working.
I'm going to give a shot at making this work.
It would be nice to have a validator or a tool to build this searchplugins.
I've tested this and it works.

If r+'ed can I go ahead and land it on aurora and beta?
Attachment #571713 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review?(milos)
Comment on attachment 578418 [details] [diff] [review]
add list-am.xml and fix wikipedia-hy.xml

Review of attachment 578418 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: browser/searchplugins/list-am.xml
@@ +8,5 @@
> +  <SearchForm>http://www.list.am/category?q=</SearchForm>
> +  <Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://www.list.am/category">
> +    <Param name="q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
> +  </Url>
> +</SearchPlugin>

This is good. I tested it, too, and it works as expected.

::: browser/searchplugins/list.txt
@@ +2,5 @@
>  eBay
>  google
>  wikipedia-hy
>  yahoo
> +list-am

This is problematic. Ordering in list.txt will be inherited in Firefox default search engines, and I assume you don't want defualt search for hy-AM users be amazon.com.

So, please just reorder per will, and submit the new patch again.

::: browser/searchplugins/wikipedia-hy.xml
@@ +1,1 @@
> +<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">

Yes, this is what used to make probs, as per IRC, I tried it again, as well, and it works.
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review?(milos) → review-
(In reply to Milos Dinic [:Milos] from comment #32)
> Comment on attachment 578418 [details] [diff] [review] [diff] [details] [review]
> ...
> This is problematic. Ordering in list.txt will be inherited in Firefox
> default search engines, and I assume you don't want defualt search for hy-AM
> users be amazon.com.

The order in list.txt does not matter. Order is by region.properties and then alphabetical of the name within the actual plugin (not the file).
Comment on attachment 578418 [details] [diff] [review]
add list-am.xml and fix wikipedia-hy.xml

I'll remember not to review bugs late at night, anymore. Thanks Axel.

Armen, so you can land on aurora, mentioning this bug and r=milos. Asking Axel now for approval for mozilla-beta

Sorry for inconvenience.
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review?(l10n)
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review?
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review-
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review? → review+
Attachment #578418 - Flags: review?(l10n) → review+
Armen,

per given reviews, please land to both aurora and beta, with proper commit descriptions, and we'll try to make it for fx9 train.
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Please don't close bugs before landing.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/hy-AM/rev/8d808c98617e
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-beta/hy-AM/rev/6703b19ab62c

FTR I tested this by creating a new profile and putting the xml files into:
~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxx.Profilename/searchplugins
and I actually had to create the searchplugins folder.

Thank you guys!

BTW are you aware of a validator for this type of XML files?
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago13 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
(In reply to Armen Zambrano G. [:armenzg] - Release Engineer from comment #37)
> 
> BTW are you aware of a validator for this type of XML files?

No, also doesn't come up often enough, I guess, to warrant replicating all the things that firefox does to them.
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