663660 - Misleading notice in Edit → Preferences → Appearance → UI Language

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:7.0a1) Gecko/20110611 Firefox/7.0a1 SeaMonkey/2.4a1 ID:20110611003105

At the bottom of "Edit → Preferences → Appearance", inside the "UI language" frame, there is:
Language preferences will take effect when you restart SeaMonkey.

Actually, no restart is necessary. When you change the UI language setting (after, of course, having installed one or more language packs), the new language takes effect immediately for new popups and windows. So change the selected UI language, close and reopen the Mailer while keeping the Browser open, close and reopen the Browser while keeping the Mailer open, and voilà: your chrome is now in the new language.

I suggest the following formulation:
Changed preferences will only apply to new windows and dialogs.

Note: According to the description of the "Preferences" component, bugs about the content of the prefpanes belong elsewhere, but where? I see no Component about switching languages (and this is a SeaMonkey bug, not a moz-l10n bug). Hm, maybe "UI design"?

Comment 1

[Edmund Wong (:ewong)]

Attachment: Changed the misleading notice in UI Language preferences.

Comment 2

[Edmund Wong (:ewong)]

Attachment: Changed the misleading notice in UI Language preferences. (v2)

Comment 3

[Ian Neal]

Comment on attachment 538747 [details] [diff] [review]
Changed the misleading notice in UI Language preferences. (v2)

Don't forget to fix help either in here or a separate bug:
Appearance Preferences - Appearance

Comment 4

[Ian Neal]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Comment on attachment 538747 [details] [diff] [review] [review]
> Changed the misleading notice in UI Language preferences. (v2)
> 
> Don't forget to fix help either in here or a separate bug:
> Appearance Preferences - Appearance

I would prefer in here as it is a single line fix for help too.

Comment 5

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

filed followup (well, maybe fixable in parallel) bug 664093 in Websites::www.seamonkey-project.org

Comment 6

[Robert Kaiser]

OOPS! Please DO NOT check this in! The restart is necessary for mere mortals!

You probably have XUL caches off, which may cause you to see this. Usually, all the values are cached and nothing is applied until you restart and those get wiped because of the locale change.

Comment 7

[Ian Neal]

Comment on attachment 538747 [details] [diff] [review]
Changed the misleading notice in UI Language preferences. (v2)

On kairo's comment r-, might still be worth tweaking help to mention that it is dependent on XUL cache settings.

Comment 8

[Robert Kaiser]

(In reply to comment #7)
> On kairo's comment r-, might still be worth tweaking help to mention that it
> is dependent on XUL cache settings.

This is a debug-only pref, not sure it's worth confusing users with it...

Comment 9

[Edmund Wong (:ewong)]

From comment #6, this bug is a WONTFIX.

Comment 10

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

See also bug 664093 comment #3 and KaiRo's reply (#4). I have nglayout.debug.disable_xul_cache "user set" to false, which seems to imply:
1. that disable_xul_cache = true might be the default
2. that I have the cache enabled
and yet after setting UI locale language to French in the Appearance prefs dialog, then clicking OK and reopening the dialog, it comes up in French, and the next "new browser window" in in French too, with no restart.

Comment 11

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

oops, bug 664093 comment #2 and reply (#3)