603969 - (fx40-p12n-gd) [gd] Firefox 4.0 productization review for Scottish Gaelic

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Mozilla Localizations :: gd / Scottish Gaelic, defect)

Description

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

As you might have seen in the newsgroups or on the Mozilla blog, there's a couple of changes to search engines planned for the 4.0 release for en-US: <http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.l10n/msg/81073d8d67e1c4c3>. We would like to use this opportunity to review the current productization setup for Scottish Gaelic and make any changes that you think will be good for our users.

What is a productization review?
================================

Here's what we're interested in:
* search engines,
* protocol handlers,
* feed readers,
* live bookmark.
You can see what your locale currently ships with at <http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n/l10n-src-verification/file/default/reference/browser/2.0/gd>

Please take a moment and review the choice of services available by default in your locale. If there have been any new services that have recently gained popularity and that offer good value for the users, please suggest adding them to your locale. On the other hand, if there are services that lost credibility (e.g. display too many adds) or have poor user experience, consider suggesting that we remove them. If in doubt, feel free to make a suggestion and we'll look at it together. You might find the guidelines at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Productization> and <https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Firefox/Productization> helpful, too.

Required changes
================

There's two things I would like to draw your attention to (if applicable):

1) if you have a google.xml file in your `searchplugins` directory, please remove it,

2) Bloglines is closing down on November 1st and we need to remove it from the feed reader options for all locales (see bug 595485). We suspect that it will make sense to move Google Reader up to the first position (if your locale has it). We will be offering technical help with this change, either in form of ready-made patches or a mass-landing by one of the l10n-drivers. If you don't think that moving Google Reader up is a good idea for your locale, please let us know!

Changes in en-US and en-GB
==========================

Here's the changes that we will be making in en-US and en-GB:
* add Bing as the 3rd general search engine (see bug 603298),
* remove Answers,
* remove Creative Commons.

We're making these changes in en-US and en-GB because we feel that they follow the recent market trends and user preferences in the US and the UK. We would like to go through the same thought process for your locale and see if any of these changes would make sense in Scottish Gaelic builds as well. If you decide that implementing these changes would be in your users' best interest then please go ahead and include them in the patch you'll attach to this bug.


Implementation
==============

Please make suggestions for changes and attach patches that Seth, Axel or I will review. Please note that since Bing provides a global plugin which does the locale detection itself, you will only need to add "bing" to your list.txt if you decide to include it. The XML file will be automatically pulled from en-US.

Once a review is granted, you can land the patch on l10n-central if your locale actively maintains it. Otherwise, please wait for further instructions which will be put in the comments of this bug and announced in mozilla.dev.l10n (we're still unsure when the branching will happen). Please do not land any changes except for the required ones (google.xml, Bloglines) on 1.9.2.

If you do not wish to make any changes, let us know, and we'll only work on removing Bloglines.

Thanks!

Comment 1

[Michael Bauer]

Thanks - I did know about Bloglines and we're working on an alternative. I'll consult with the online community to find out if they feel Bing and/or Google Reader is a good idea.

Comment 2

[Michael Bauer]

Staś, the overwhelming response has been that people prefer not to have Bling but rather to continue with the emphasis on services available in Gaelic. Unless Bling start localising of course.

There have been requests though to add the other big Gaelic dictionary "An Stòr-dàta" (http://www2.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/sbg/lorg.php) to the list of pre-installed search engines, so that might be something we could look into.

No word on the bloglines issue as yet but I'm keeping at it.

Cheers!

Comment 3

[Seth Bindernagel]

(In reply to comment #2)
> There have been requests though to add the other big Gaelic dictionary "An
> Stòr-dàta" (http://www2.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/faclair/sbg/lorg.php) to the
> list of pre-installed search engines, so that might be something we could look
> into.

If it is something that your team decides, then we'll need to prepare a patch before Firefox 4.

> No word on the bloglines issue as yet but I'm keeping at it.

We'll need to check in a change before the end of November, so if you can't find anything, can you prepare a patch that removes Bloglines and puts Google in its place?  Thanks!

Comment 4

[Michael Bauer]

Since the "team" at the moment is me, and since I'm happy with the suggestion from the wider community, the answer is yes, let's add the Stòr-dàta. 

I'll work on a solution to the bloglines thing withing the next 2 weeks. Word was that people wouldn't be keen to just see Google there in its place. We might end up with a gap or something else. It's near the top of my agenda.

Comment 5

[Seth Bindernagel]

When you are ready, please prepare and attach a patch for 1.9.2 removing Bloglines.

And, when you are ready, prepare another patch that adds Stòr-dàta and removes Bloglines from 1l0n-central.

So, I'll need to review two patches.

Comment 6

[Michael Bauer]

Hm i still don't know how to do either of these things but that's not the main point just now.

We've found a solution, a php app which allows you to do what Bloglines did yourself - we heven't quite finished it yet but there will be a fully Gaelic site rather than the Google thing.

I thought I'd mention it though as there seem to be other localisations which have the same problem. You can get the app here: http://www.phprssreader.com/ and it's easy enough to set up even for folks like me. The only thing that's not totally obvious is that you need to run .../update after adding your rss/atom/twitter feeds before they'll show. As it works off a .language file, we thing the interfact can be localised, even, but we haven't figured that one just yet.

Comment 7

[Michael Bauer]

Attachment: Tog Blog logo

Ok, done, we've created a site which does the same thing at http://www.togblog.org I'm attaching the png for the logo; except for changing the link and the logo, the wording on the Getting Started page doesn't have to change.

I'll park the Stòr-dàta thing until we start working on Fx4 in Gaelic, no massive urgency there.

Thanks!

Comment 8

[Michael Bauer]

Could someone look into this? Bloglines is now gone and we thus have a dead link on the Getting Started page :/

Comment 9

[Michael Bauer]

Attachment: Updated version of the Getting Started page

Changed links from Bloglines to TogBlog, corrected a typo

Comment 10

[Seth Bindernagel]

Michael, did you resolve that problem with the site?  In the future, file a new bug under websites for these types of issues.  We can track that progress in that bug.

Back to this bug, have you submitted a patch for 1.9.2 and 2.0?  I think you said in comment 6 that you don't know how to do that yet.  Do you want to set up a time to do this together?  I can walk you through how to create a patch and then push it to your Hg repository.

Comment 11

[Seth Bindernagel]

Bloglines still remains in your 1.9.2 repository.  Please prepare a patch to remove it. Do you need help doing this?  Ping me if you do.

Comment 12

[Michael Bauer]

I did, Milos helped me and afaik I took it as far as I can
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=608970

Comment 13

[Seth Bindernagel]

(In reply to comment #12)
> I did, Milos helped me and afaik I took it as far as I can
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=608970

Hey Michael, This bug doesn't have anything to do with Mozilla websites.  It's about the Firefox product.  Firefox ships with code that enables end-user features we call protocol handlers.  This allows the application to detect when a web service (like a web based rss feed reader) might be helpful or something that an end user wants to use.  In this case, Bloglines is at the center of the issue.  Now...

Bloglines still remains in your 1.9.2 repository.  Please prepare a patch to remove it.  However please note the new update about Bloglines below that I learned this morning.

Mozilla has been contacted by the new owners of Bloglines who have said they will keep the service running.  If you have no other options, you can consider leaving it.  However, it is hard to say whether that team who is now in control of Bloglines will change their mind again.  The l10n-drivers feel that it would be best to remove it altogether.

Also, if you have any productization changes to make for Firefox 4, like the Bing suggestion listed in comment 0, please provide a patch to make that change on l10n-central.  Thank you.

Comment 14

[Michael Bauer]

Ok I think I'm not getting something here so bear with me?

I checked the link you sent (http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n/l10n-src-verification/file/default/reference/browser/2.0/gd) and Bloglines isn't on it. I may very well be wrong but I thought Bloglines only ever featured on the gd Getting Started webpage but wasn't coded into the browser anywhere.

As for Bing, consensus was not to bother. At best, we might add the Stòr-dàta as an additional search engine and a spellchecker addon at the start of December but let's sort this Bloglines thing first. 

So where am I not getting it?

Comment 15

[Seth Bindernagel]

Check out this link:

http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n-mozilla-1.9.2/gd/file/default/browser/chrome/browser-region/region.properties

We need to change the 1.9.2 repository.  You could have also found the file in the l10n-src verification repository by clicking on "region.properties":

http://hg.mozilla.org/l10n/l10n-src-verification/file/default/reference/browser/2.0/gd/region.properties

You need to prepare a patch that removes Bloglines. Do you need help doing this?  If so, just ping me.  Hope this helps.

Comment 16

[Michael Bauer]

Attachment: 1.9.2 patch to remove Bloglines

Comment 17

[Michael Bauer]

Attachment: Patch to remove Bloglines from 2x

Comment 18

[Seth Bindernagel]

Comment on attachment 493024 [details] [diff] [review]
1.9.2 patch to remove Bloglines

This looks good.   We will need to commit this to your local 1.9.2 repository and then push from there.  Please ping me or Stas if you would like help doing this.

Comment 19

[Seth Bindernagel]

When you commit, please add a message that references this bug and the change.

Comment 20

[Seth Bindernagel]

Comment on attachment 493025 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to remove Bloglines from 2x

This looks good.  Before you commit this, I would like Stas to review the status of your local l10n-central repository.  Please hold off on checking this in until you and Stas connect on IRC.

Comment 21

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

Hey Michael, thanks for preparing the patches. Feel free to ping me on IRC if you need any help with committing them to hg.

Comment 22

[Michael Bauer]

Fixed now, many thanks y' all!

Comment 23

[Staś Małolepszy :stas]

https://hg.mozilla.org/l10n/l10n-src-verification/rev/e0ebcf73e814