624504 - Suggest changing list of locales to <select>

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Software, task)

Description

[Paul Craciunoiu [:paulc]]

Logged in, go to:
http://master.support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/what-are-app-tabs/locales

Right now, to translate to a locale, you click on one from the list of locales on the above page.

IMO, it would be better to just show a select box with an onchange handler that does the same thing. Eliminates the need for searching or scrolling, as I imagine most localizers know how to type their locale and they can do that in the <select>.

Admittedly I'm betting that localizers are advanced users and know how to change the selected value in a <select> by typing into it. I guess this is a question for the SUMO team.

Comment 1

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

Unfortunately we can't make that assumption. Localizers are good at localization, that's about as far as I would go assumption wise ;) But I'm also not quite sure what that would look like, basically an input field that displays languages as you start typing? How about instead of or in addition to that, showing the localizers accept-language in a big font size on top of that listing or select box?
Maybe right after:
"Select a locale to translate to:"
it would then read
"Select a locale to translate to: German"

Comment 2

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

okay, sorry, I just realized what you meant with select. Couldn't we combine that with guessing the target language from the accept-language?

Comment 3

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

If we do a <select>, we can't easily distinguish between existing and non-existing localizations in a scannable way. While the giant list might not be great, a <select> is definitely a UI regression.

Comment 4

[David Tenser [:djst]]

To be fair, you can type the locale on the existing page too, using Find as you type. 

I agree with the resolution of this bug, but it sounds like Kadir is suggesting something else. Kadir, could you clarify and/or file a separate bug if necessary?

Comment 5

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

James, as far as I can tell we currently display a language on that page regardless of whether a translation into that language exists already or not.

David, my suggestion was to make an assumption on the language the localizer will most probably choose instead of giving him all 63 options without preference.

Comment 6

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

We do display all the locales whether a translations exists or not. It's been suggested a few times that we at least visually distinguish locales where a translations exists by de-emphasizing them. (I thought we had a bug but can't find it.)

We have no easy way of assuming which language(s) the localizer will likely choose. File a new bug with suggestions?

Comment 7

[Kadir Topal [:atopal]]

I'd say that the accept-lang header is a strong indicator, but I'll file a different bug for that.