964816 - Add Albanian keyboard layout support

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Keyboard, defect)

Description

[Besnik Bleta]

Firefox OS misses an Albanian keyboard layout. Let's try to implement one.

I'm assuming that providing a sq.json is the first thing to do. Upon confirming, I could provide one.

Comment 1

[Kevin Scannell]

I created a frequency list from web texts, only including words accepted by v1.6.4 of aspell-sq spell checker.

http://borel.slu.edu/obair/sq.zip

Comment 2

[Besnik Bleta]

Many, many thanx, Kevin. I'll have a look to see for any error there. (I caught the name of capital, erroneously lower-cased, for example.)

Comment 3

[Kevin Scannell]

That should only happen if the lowercased word is accepted by the spell checker.

Comment 4

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

You'll want to add an sq.js to https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/master/apps/keyboard/js/layouts.

To include it in your test builds, you'll need to manually specify GAIA_KEYBOARD_LAYOUTS to include sq, https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/Makefile#L325

Comment 5

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Unless they changed things up, you should also be able to pass GAIA_KEYBOARD_LAYOUTS to the make command

Example
make clean && PRODUCTION=1 make install-gaia MAKECMDGOALS=production MOZILLA_OFFICIAL=1 GAIA_KEYBOARD_LAYOUTS=en,sq GAIA_DEFAULT_LOCALE=sq LOCALES_FILE=locales/languages_all.json LOCALE_BASEDIR=locales/ DEVICE_DEBUG=1

Comment 6

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Axel Hecht [:Pike][pto til 14th] from comment #4)
> You'll want to add an sq.js to
> https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/master/apps/keyboard/js/layouts.

Locally or you need a pull request to https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/master/ ?

Comment 7

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

We'll need a pull request. Once you got one, take the url and create an attachment in this bug and opt to "paste text as attachment". then just paste the URL to github as is, and bugzilla will create the right bells and whistles for you. Request review from one of the suggested reviewers then.

Comment 8

[Besnik Bleta]

Attachment: Pull request for Albanian keyboard layout

Here's the pull request for sq keyboard layout.

Comment 9

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Comment on attachment 8393723 [details] [review]
Pull request for Albanian keyboard layout

Requesting review for Besnik. Jan, your queue looks less busy than David's

Comment 10

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 8393723 [details] [review]
Pull request for Albanian keyboard layout

Hi, first, the layout looks different than everything I find when searching for Albanian keyboard layout (e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Albanian_keyboard_layout.jpg/400px-Albanian_keyboard_layout.jpg) and https://lh4.ggpht.com/b2ikRE2V85whCQ3wrWHLIVzLZvQzfDpAmVRVdVlvAjiLd1jT8ALXcU5vlK4mFOg8T38=h310.

Second, the sq autocorrect dictionary is referenced, but it's not included in the commit.

Comment 11

[Besnik Bleta]

> Hi, first, the layout looks different than everything I find when searching
> for Albanian keyboard layout (e.g.
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/
> Albanian_keyboard_layout.jpg/400px-Albanian_keyboard_layout.jpg) and
> https://lh4.ggpht.com/
> b2ikRE2V85whCQ3wrWHLIVzLZvQzfDpAmVRVdVlvAjiLd1jT8ALXcU5vlK4mFOg8T38=h310.

It's embarrassing to say that Albanian never had an "official" layout, because it never had any OS translated and shipped in Albanian, from big players or from free software players. So what you find are attempts to address this problem. 
I've been able to work with my hack for almost 10 years now, but I never uploaded a picture in wikimedia, nor did I try to rally users around it. I just explained to people how to hack for xmodmap.

Technically speaking, both examples make use of w letter, which is not present in the Albanian alphabet. From a basic English layout, Albanian needs to drop w, as unnecessary, and add "ë" and "ç" which are part of the alphabet. The examples you provided do that in an inconvenient way, leaving w there and imitating some layout hacked to loose some of ; : ' " [ { ] } . I can't trace back who introduced that hack, but I've seen the offer for many years now.

The thing is that in a touchscreen device you can have any layout you want, you don't need to hack a German keyboard to make it type in Albanian. You can have the Albanian one and the German one and switch between following your needs. And when I say Albanian one, I don't mean having the key with ; engraved type "ç".

Apparently this potential hasn't been understood enough.

Someone could argue that w is needed to type web addresses. But I could simply point to the auto-completion feature of the browser shipped with Firefox OS. And, in any case, anyone could switch easily to en-US keyboard. 

For your reference, I'm copying the Albanian alphabet below:

   A B C Ç D Dh E Ë F G Gj H I J K L Ll M N Nj O P Q R Rr S Sh T Th U V X Xh Y Z Zh

No extra keys needed for: Dh, Gj, Ll, Nj, Rr, Sh, Th, Xh, and Zh. So what we need is a layout to rearrange A B C Ç D E Ë F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z, keeping in mind that till now the most used real keyboard has been the English one.

Comment 12

[Besnik Bleta]

Looking in the pictures I have a feeling that "ë" and "ç" are banned in the corner of the keyboard. It looks more like an afterthought, than an attempt to really solve the problem. Their real cousins are "e" and "c". Even the bad practice of all those years from users confirm this: lacking a proper keyboard (either in desktops or in mobiles) the write simply "embelsire" for "ëmbëlsirë", or "calaman" for "çalaman". So laying them out my way it would even help to cure the bad habit easier.

Comment 13

[Besnik Bleta]

The autocorrect dictionary is the word list provided by Kevin (see in the beginnings of the bug) or something else?

Comment 14

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #13)
> The autocorrect dictionary is the word list provided by Kevin (see in the
> beginnings of the bug) or something else?

Yes, it's that file, which is not part of the PR on github.

Comment 16

[Besnik Bleta]

I tried https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/blob/master/apps/keyboard/js/imes/latin/dictionaries/xml2dict.py script to create a .dict file from the sq_wordlist.xml but it fails:


$ python xml2dict.py --output=sq.dict sq_wordlist.xml
[0/4] Creating dictionary ... (this might take a long time)
[1/4] Reading XML wordlist and creating TST ...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "xml2dict.py", line 518, in <module>
    p.ParseFile(open(args[0], 'rb'))
xml.parsers.expat.ExpatError: not well-formed (invalid token): line 2, column 17
[besnik@localhost gaia]$ python xml2dict.py --output=sq.dict sq_wordlist.xml
[0/4] Creating dictionary ... (this might take a long time)
[1/4] Reading XML wordlist and creating TST ...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "xml2dict.py", line 518, in <module>
    p.ParseFile(open(args[0], 'rb'))
xml.parsers.expat.ExpatError: not well-formed (invalid token): line 2, column 17

Any idea how to resolve it or from whom should I ask more information/help?

Comment 17

[Kevin Scannell]

That's likely my fault; syntax error in the XML.  Here's a corrected file:
http://borel.slu.edu/obair/sqv2.zip

Comment 18

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Kevin Scannell from comment #17)
Thanks Kevin! It produced a cute baby of 788.3Kbs!

Comment 19

[Besnik Bleta]

Attachment: Albanian sq.dict

I'm attaching the .dict file here, for any interested part (outside Mozilla).

Comment 20

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #8)
> Created attachment 8393723 [details] [review]
> Pull request for Albanian keyboard layout
> 
> Here's the pull request for sq keyboard layout.

Pull request updated (https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/pull/17340) with .dict and wordlist added for sq.

Comment 21

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

Nominating for 2.0 as we'll really need it

Comment 22

[howie [:howie]]

Feature not blocking, ni Bruce to put as product backlog if needed.

Comment 23

[Bruce Huang [:bhuang] (inactive)]

We'll rely on l10n expertise here, looks like the work is proceeding, not in backlog for now.

Comment 24

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Bruce, keyboards are outside of the expertise of the l10n team. We can help connect folks, and find folks local, but the combination of linguistics and local UX is commonly outside of our scope.

Comment 25

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

[Blocking Requested - why for this release]:

Tako requirement, asking to block for 2.1

Comment 26

[howie [:howie]]

Hi Delphine, could you tell us where you got the information this is a Tako requirement? Hi Bruce, need you to clarify here, thanks.

Comment 27

[Bruce Huang [:bhuang] (inactive)]

Considering there are differing opinions here, can we get more feedback on which layout to use?  Most references seem to point to a QWERTZ layout, but I'd like to see if we can get more native speaker feedback on comment 11 as well.

Comment 28

[Bruce Huang [:bhuang] (inactive)]

Hi Axel, do you know who can help review the Albanian layout provided in comment 11?  Most references to an Albanian keyboard layout point to the layout in comment 10, so a third opinion would be helpful here.

Comment 29

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Just glancing at http://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faqja_kryesore, I think it's useful to make ë a front-and-center key in an Albanian keyboard.

I don't have a better contact than Besnik, and I don't yet see a real need for a vote or something.

I'd be more curious to what Jan thinks of Besnik's answers to his question.

Comment 30

[Besnik Bleta]

I've just posted a call in two forums, inviting everyone interested to give his view/vote to this bug.
I'm also pinging Elio from Mozilla Albania, hopping that he could provide the opinions of MozA community members.

Comment 31

[Besnik Bleta]

I'd also be grateful if someone could build a nightly to showcase the proposed layout and attach a photograph of it to this bug. That might help the non-technical user visualize the idea.

Comment 32

[Elio Qoshi [:Elio]]

Thank you Besnik!

Im posting on the community's mailing list to see the opinions and will also ask around.

I dont think that ë and ç are squished in the albanian keyboard, other languages have the same layout, as German, where ö ä and ü are in the corner of the keyboard.
I would agree with the layout Jan linked to in comment #10

Comment 33

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

(In reply to howie [:howie] from comment #26)
> Hi Delphine, could you tell us where you got the information this is a Tako
> requirement? Hi Bruce, need you to clarify here, thanks.

I understood this from a spreadsheet that Wilfred sent me. Maybe he can clarify more about this

Comment 34

[Gjergj Sheldija]

hi all,
from an albanian user and coder, the layout proposed in comment 10, looks perfect.
except swaping z and w :)
if you could squish ë and ç in the corner it would be great.

another solution would be to swap [ and ] with ë and ç and activate those via a possible
Alt Gr

Comment 35

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #31)
> I'd also be grateful if someone could build a nightly to showcase the
> proposed layout and attach a photograph of it to this bug. That might help
> the non-technical user visualize the idea.

You can go here: http://janjongboom.com/gaia-keyboard-demo

Upload the .js layout file and the dictionary, and see how it looks like right in the browser.

Comment 36

[Besnik Bleta]

> I dont think that ë and ç are squished in the albanian keyboard, other
> languages have the same layout, as German, where ö ä and ü are in the corner
> of the keyboard.

That might be because German needs w. Albanian does not. There's not a single entry in the Albanian corpus starting with w. That's why I've been against sacrificing one of the most pervasive letters of Albanian for a totally unneeded character.

Comment 37

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Gjergj Sheldija from comment #34)
> hi all,
> from an albanian user and coder, the layout proposed in comment 10, looks
> perfect.
> except swaping z and w :)
> if you could squish ë and ç in the corner it would be great.
> 
> another solution would be to swap [ and ] with ë and ç and activate those
> via a possible
> Alt Gr

Gjergj,

Thanks for participating! 
My only additional comment for the first part of your post would be the offer to correct any piece of text (you provide it) written without using ë and ç. Then we can weight the importance of the letter ë.

For the second part, I'd like to remind you that the keyboards in question are all virtual. Firefox OS lets you switch from one to another through a menu. You need to write in Albanian, you'd choose the Albanian layout. If another layout is needed, you could choose that one. No need for the old trick of Alt+Gr.

Comment 38

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (Telenor) from comment #35)
> Upload the .js layout file and the dictionary, and see how it looks like
> right in the browser.

Thank you! I just made a screenshot of the proposed layout. I'm attaching it here, so less tech-say users can see how it would look.

Comment 39

[Besnik Bleta]

Attachment: sq keyboard layout

Here's how the proposed layout would look.

Comment 40

[Besnik Bleta]

Attachment: sq numerical keyboard layout

Here's the numerical keyboard.

Comment 41

[Gjergj Sheldija]

hi Besnik,
thanks :)

my main concers for not removing the w,are that the majority are taught
with english keyboards, and the second is that there usefull websites that
start or have w in them that people use a lot, like weather.com or wikipedia.

the idea of a simple user changing between layouts just to open wikipedia, does
not look so simple.


(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #37)
> (In reply to Gjergj Sheldija from comment #34)
> > hi all,
> > from an albanian user and coder, the layout proposed in comment 10, looks
> > perfect.
> > except swaping z and w :)
> > if you could squish ë and ç in the corner it would be great.
> > 
> > another solution would be to swap [ and ] with ë and ç and activate those
> > via a possible
> > Alt Gr
> 
> Gjergj,
> 
> Thanks for participating! 
> My only additional comment for the first part of your post would be the
> offer to correct any piece of text (you provide it) written without using ë
> and ç. Then we can weight the importance of the letter ë.
> 
> For the second part, I'd like to remind you that the keyboards in question
> are all virtual. Firefox OS lets you switch from one to another through a
> menu. You need to write in Albanian, you'd choose the Albanian layout. If
> another layout is needed, you could choose that one. No need for the old
> trick of Alt+Gr.

Comment 42

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Gjergj Sheldija from comment #41)
> my main concers for not removing the w,are that the majority are taught
> with english keyboards, and the second is that there usefull websites that
> start or have w in them that people use a lot, like weather.com or wikipedia.
> 
> the idea of a simple user changing between layouts just to open wikipedia,
> does
> not look so simple.

The autocompletion function in Firefox (OS) (and many other modern browsers) is your solution here. Your type once "www.weather.com" and after that just typing "eathe" or "eath" shows you "www.weather.com" as a choice. The user can also pin the tabs of the most used sites he/she open frequently, having the ready at any time.

The limited screen space assigned to mobile phone keyboard makes it hard to fit characters. Any additional one takes up space otherwise used by other characters. Adding w, along ë and ç seems as a good agreement, but that would make using the keyboard in (smartphones) even harder than it usually is.

Comment 43

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #42)
> The autocompletion function in Firefox (OS) (and many other modern browsers)
> is your solution here. Your type once "www.weather.com" and after that just
> typing "eathe" or "eath" shows you "www.weather.com" as a choice. The user
> can also pin the tabs of the most used sites he/she open frequently, having
> the ready at any time.

From a usability standpoint this strikes me as very, very bad. If I look at an Android keyboard it has W: https://lh4.ggpht.com/b2ikRE2V85whCQ3wrWHLIVzLZvQzfDpAmVRVdVlvAjiLd1jT8ALXcU5vlK4mFOg8T38=h900

Comment 44

[Elio Qoshi [:Elio]]

Leaving nationalism out of this, I fully agree to include W in the SQ keyboard. It's true that it's not used in the actual language, but we use so many words from English and other languages, it would be a very very bad idea to not include it ( how would you write www. anyway?). Obviously you wouldn't depend on autocorrect either, just for the sake of not "pestering" the SQ keyboard with a foreign letter.

Apart from that, an additional letter on the keyboard would hardly change the typing accuracy and speed of it, I believe

Comment 45

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (Telenor) from comment #43)

> 
> From a usability standpoint this strikes me as very, very bad. 
I'm surprised. I see w missing in other layouts, approved ones, Russian and Chinese included. 
I'd be really proud to hear that sq users (and market) are taken care better than ru, el, he, ko, zh, counterparts 

>If I look at
> an Android keyboard it has W:
> https://lh4.ggpht.com/
> b2ikRE2V85whCQ3wrWHLIVzLZvQzfDpAmVRVdVlvAjiLd1jT8ALXcU5vlK4mFOg8T38=h900

Vhy on Earth should Android be taken as a standard for our case?

Comment 46

[Bruce Huang [:bhuang] (inactive)]

What about having the W as a long press option on the closest character?  This way users still don't have to switch keyboards, but can still type in Albanian normally when the W is not needed.

Comment 47

[howie [:howie]]

Triage: This is requirement for 2.1. Blocking.

Comment 48

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Elio Qoshi  [:Elio] from comment #44)
> we use so many words from English and other languages
That indeed should be considered a bad practice. For instance, if you submit a paper written mainly in one language, but sprinkled with words from another language, much likely your paper would be rejected.

> how would you write www. anyway?
I don't even remember when was the last time I needed to write www. to access a given site.

> wouldn't depend on autocorrect either,
Auto-completion is not auto-correcting and I was talking about the auto-completion function. 

> 
> Apart from that, an additional letter on the keyboard would hardly change
> the typing accuracy and speed of it, I believe

Comment 49

[Elio Qoshi [:Elio]]

>That indeed should be considered a bad practice. For instance, if you submit a paper written mainly in >one language, but sprinkled with words from another language, much likely your paper would be rejected.

It is bad practice, yes, but that's the reality, we will not be able to make people write better Albanian by removing the 'w' from the keyboard.

>I don't even remember when was the last time I needed to write www. to access a given site.

Not everyone is tech savvy like you and me. On top of that Firefox OS devices aren't focused on developed markets. 

>Auto-completion is not auto-correcting and I was talking about the auto-completion function. 

Yeah sorry, I meant the same, my bad.

>What about having the W as a long press option on the closest character?  This way users still don't >have to switch keyboards, but can still type in Albanian normally when the W is not needed.

I still think that's not the right approach. W is very often used in various words and names, even more than ç sometimes(speaking about the way we write on a daily basis)

Again Besnik, as the Firefox OS Launch Team Lead I tell you that we will have problems with user complaints if we do such thing with the w. We have been working so hard toward this and I don't want to waste all the hard work for such a (seemingly) small thing.

Comment 50

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Elio Qoshi  [:Elio] from comment #49)
> It is bad practice, yes, but that's the reality, we will not be able to make
> people write better Albanian by removing the 'w' from the keyboard.
I'm afraid you're missing the point here: a sq keyboard means a keyboard as close as possible to the needs of sq language itself, to its corpus and its standards and its best practices, not to aberrant practices. How many users would embrace it... nobody knows. I hope many. In any case, the situation can't be worse than now.
As per the aberrants... they have the "current" keyboard available and they still refuse to write properly (just have a look at your mailing lists for an example). 

> Again Besnik, as the Firefox OS Launch Team Lead I tell you that we will
> have problems with user complaints if we do such thing with the w. We have
> been working so hard toward this and I don't want to waste all the hard work
> for such a (seemingly) small thing.
I'm sorry to say but it seems to me that you're leading in the wrong direction, if any.

Comment 51

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Bruce Huang [:bhuang] <[e-mail]> from comment #46)
> What about having the W as a long press option on the closest character? 
> This way users still don't have to switch keyboards, but can still type in
> Albanian normally when the W is not needed.

That might be a nice solution. V is the closest character to W. But Ë could be used, to keep heavy users of w happy with they en_US layout habits.

My question here is what should be changed in sq.js in order to implement it

Comment 52

[Elio Qoshi [:Elio]]

I disagree with you there, but again I won't put any more effort to get my point across then.

Comment 53

[Gjergj Sheldija]

just a quick thing, there is a standart for the alb keyboard. at least on windows : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964651.aspx
and on linux, see https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/435136/keyboard_sq_al.png

so, why invent a new keyboard layout ?

Comment 54

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Hi Besnik,

First of all, thank you for providing Albanian keyboard layout.
To make this work move forward, I would suggest we keep "w" in the layout for the following reasons, 
 1. With comment 10, comment 41, and comment 44, supporting to include "w"

 2. We can see "w" included in the referenced Android keyboard, it is not a standard, but a good reference design.

 3. For usability, (as already mentioned above for typing URL or something), if we don't have "w" available, the user would need to enable both English and Albanian keyboard and switch between them only to type a single "w" character.
 
Thanks.

Comment 55

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Hi Besnik,

As this feature has been included in v2.1 scope, could you please help feedback on this this week.
Please help look at my previous comment.
Thank you.

Comment 56

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Rudy Lu [:rudyl] from comment #54)
> Hi Besnik,
> 
> First of all, thank you for providing Albanian keyboard layout.
> To make this work move forward, I would suggest we keep "w" in the layout
> for the following reasons, 
>  1. With comment 10, comment 41, and comment 44, supporting to include "w"
> 
>  2. We can see "w" included in the referenced Android keyboard, it is not a
> standard, but a good reference design.
> 
>  3. For usability, (as already mentioned above for typing URL or something),
> if we don't have "w" available, the user would need to enable both English
> and Albanian keyboard and switch between them only to type a single "w"
> character.
>  
> Thanks.

Having w as long press option, (see Bruce's comment) might achieve what you trying to achieve, without sacrificing any Albanian alphabet letter. You can easily find out how important having ë and ç present in the sq keyboard is. Just borrow for few minutes a book written in Albanian and check for yourself.

To help you understanding the situation: would you approve opening bugs for locales (I mentioned few of them above) which do not have w in their keyboards? It'd be funny to see what other localizers have to say in similar cases of sq. Explicitly only, as they've said they word through theirs layouts.

Comment 57

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Rudy Lu [:rudyl] from comment #55)
> Hi Besnik,
> 
> As this feature has been included in v2.1 scope, could you please help
> feedback on this this week.
> Please help look at my previous comment.
> Thank you.

I'll try.

Comment 58

[Dori]

Whatever option is picked will be a hack because it has not been designed with albanian words in mind. The QWERTZ layout was probably chosen because of German and Austrian keyboards used through out Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It doesn't help at all with typing albanian words. On the internet I see a lot of typos in albanian words by native albanian speakers where 'w' has been used instead of 'ë'. I'd like to see those typos go away as they're very confusing. If that means hiding the 'w' so be it. As to the location of the 'ë' and 'ç' letters, best go with what's used on other layouts. Again, it won't help because they're in a logical location that makes sense for albanian letter frequency, but it might help those already used to these layouts.

Comment 59

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Attachment: Patch V1

This is a counter proposal to add Albanian keyboard layout which is much like the Android version and the sample layout mentioned in comment 10.

Ask for the community's help to feedback on this first.

Comment 60

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Attachment: albanian_keyboard_layout.png

And here is the screenshot for the proposed layout in attachment 8492976 [details] [review]: Patch V1.

Comment 61

[Gjergj Sheldija]

the normal alb keyboard that can be found in every system.like the consistency

Comment 62

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8492976 [details] [review]
Patch V1

I'll take comment 61 as a feedback+ to this patch.

Jan, could you please help this patch and bug 1059745?
Thank you.

Comment 63

[Besnik Bleta]

I'm against your patch and the arbitrary way you're trying to proceed here. I don't believe you should have gone the same way if a "big" locale was in question. It looks like closing bugs is more important than caring for the real needs of the users (sq users in this case).

Comment 64

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 8492976 [details] [review]
Patch V1

Let me put the review on a hold until we have more consensus here.

> Even the bad practice of all those years from users confirm this: 
> lacking a proper keyboard (either in desktops or in mobiles) the 
> write simply "embelsire" for "ëmbëlsirë", or "calaman" for "çalaman". 
> So laying them out my way it would even help to cure the bad habit
> easier.
We have autocorrect to guard against this as well. Having the keys on the keyboard would be a big win already.

But so far we have always included the W character in keyboard layouts, even though the alphabet itself does not have the character (like Montenegrin), and we also always stay close to a normal QWERTY, QWERTZ layout for consistency. In that sense I agree with the layout posed here, also supported by the fact that it's consistent with the most used Android keyboard for Albanian.

So f+ for now from me.

Comment 65

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #63)
> I'm against your patch and the arbitrary way you're trying to proceed here.

If that is the case, please help give more evidences that your proposal already have consensus around Albanian native speakers.
From this thread, I cannot see this, I would say you're the only one against putting "w" in the layout, and while other community members don't think this is the way to go.

> I don't believe you should have gone the same way if a "big" locale was in
> question. It looks like closing bugs is more important than caring for the
> real needs of the users (sq users in this case).

It is not about closing a bug but providing a keyboard for Albanian users with more consensus and consideration about usability.

If you still insist that your patch is the right way to go, please help ask for feedback+ from community members and we could land your patch first.

Thank you.

Comment 66

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Rudy Lu [:rudyl] from comment #65)
> If that is the case, please help give more evidences that your proposal
> already have consensus around Albanian native speakers.
> From this thread, I cannot see this, I would say you're the only one against
> putting "w" in the layout, and while other community members don't think
> this is the way to go.

Only two of the four Albanians participating here (Dori, Elio, Gjergj and myself) fully support leaving w in the sq layout. Just counting natives, as they are supposed to be more informed about sq needs. So far for the metrics. 

I tried to get feedback and let people express their views (2 of the fours above were invited by myself). (Elsewhere I only got two +, none against so far. Links upon request, in Albanian.) 
More than disagreement with my proposal, I'd rather see that as lack of belief that something can be changed for better, after years of neglect from big hardware players. Had they provided a sq physical keyboard, we'd not be discussing now.

 
> It is not about closing a bug but providing a keyboard for Albanian users
> with more consensus and consideration about usability.
Then you wait for or build the consensus, instead of providing a layout which violates
current practices, used to approve bg, el, he, mk, ru, sr layouts among others. 

> 
> If you still insist that your patch is the right way to go, please help ask
> for feedback+ from community members and we could land your patch first.
That's what I'm going to do. Since Bugzilla isn't the most user friendly, I'd suggest
using a survey or a poll in Albanian, somewhere. (I'll cover the expenses, if such are needed.)

Meanwhile, we can temporarily close this bug landing your patch and clearing blocking-b2g flag for 2.1. I'd kindly ask you to change $ sign with Euro symbol on your patch, so we could close bug  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1071806 as well. Thanx!

Comment 67

[Gi[]

Pershendetje , 
Me falni që po u shkruaj ne shqip ,po nuk ia them shumë anglishtes në te shkruar , dhe mendova që ta shpreh mendimin tim në shqip (ndoshta dikush mund ta përkthejë në anglisht) Gjithsesi

I lexova komentet gati të gjithë dhe me sa pashë problemi qëndron , nese "W" i duhet apo jo tastierës shqip.
Mendimi ime është ky , "w" meqënëse nuk është pjesë e alfabetit tone dhe si e tillë duhet te mbetet jashtë futjes së saj në tastierën shqip.Kjo tastjerë i shërben përdoruesit shqiptar jo atij anglez , francez etj.
Uebet shqiptarë në shumicën e tyre nuk kanë "w" pjesë te urls,dhe si e tillë "w" nuk është e nevojshme te jet pjese e tastires.
Ndonëse shumë uebe te huaja kanë si pjesë të urls "w" kjo nuk perben ndonje fakt që "w" te jet pjese e tastieres shqip. Shumica e kerkuesve kan si vecori sygjerimin e fjalëve dhe fare mire ti mund ta gjeshë uebin që kërkon dhe pse nuk e shkruan fjalën e plote. Faleminderit!

Comment 68

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Attachment: Albanian keyboard on Windows Phone 8.1

Hey, I just found that Windows Phone 8.1 has the support of Albanian keyboard layout.

So, here is a screenshot of that layout for your reference.

Comment 69

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Attachment: Patch V1.1

Patch updated to include customized symbol panel to include localized currency symbol.

Comment 70

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8492976 [details] [review]
Patch V1

Sorry, the previous comment was meant to make this patch obsolete.
But the original patch by Besnik should be obsolete as well because the pull request has been closed.

Comment 71

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

(In reply to Besnik Bleta from comment #66)
> (In reply to Rudy Lu [:rudyl] from comment #65)
> > If that is the case, please help give more evidences that your proposal
> > already have consensus around Albanian native speakers.
> > From this thread, I cannot see this, I would say you're the only one against
> > putting "w" in the layout, and while other community members don't think
> > this is the way to go.
> 
> Only two of the four Albanians participating here (Dori, Elio, Gjergj and
> myself) fully support leaving w in the sq layout. Just counting natives, as
> they are supposed to be more informed about sq needs. So far for the
> metrics. 

If possible, please also consider Android keyboard layout and the Windows Phone version as 2 votes to include "w". I just attached a screenshot from Windows Phone for your reference.

> 
> I tried to get feedback and let people express their views (2 of the fours
> above were invited by myself). (Elsewhere I only got two +, none against so
> far. Links upon request, in Albanian.) 
> More than disagreement with my proposal, I'd rather see that as lack of
> belief that something can be changed for better, after years of neglect from
> big hardware players. Had they provided a sq physical keyboard, we'd not be
> discussing now.
> 
>  
> > It is not about closing a bug but providing a keyboard for Albanian users
> > with more consensus and consideration about usability.
> Then you wait for or build the consensus, instead of providing a layout
> which violates
> current practices, used to approve bg, el, he, mk, ru, sr layouts among
> others. 
> 
> > 
> > If you still insist that your patch is the right way to go, please help ask
> > for feedback+ from community members and we could land your patch first.
> That's what I'm going to do. Since Bugzilla isn't the most user friendly,
> I'd suggest
> using a survey or a poll in Albanian, somewhere. (I'll cover the expenses,
> if such are needed.)

I am not sure what is the best way to get more consensus here, but I don't think Bugzilla is that hard to approach, if possible, I could help guide more people in to give "feedback+" on the screenshot of the patch.
(BTW, you could clear needinfo flag after your response.)

> 
> Meanwhile, we can temporarily close this bug landing your patch and clearing
> blocking-b2g flag for 2.1. I'd kindly ask you to change $ sign with Euro
> symbol on your patch, so we could close bug 
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1071806 as well. Thanx!

Patched updated to address this issue.
Thanks.

I've set feedback to you, so if you agree this is good to go, please set f+ to this patch.

Comment 72

[Besnik Bleta]

(In reply to Rudy Lu [:rudyl] from comment #71)
> If possible, please also consider Android keyboard layout and the Windows
> Phone version as 2 votes to include "w". 

SQ itself has no need for "w". Android or Microsoft engineers might not know this. I'm affraid that they just copied the only layout they found and closed the bug. Just a kind of afterthought, as they never have released any localized version of their OSs for sq, contrary to what we're trying to do.

Comment 73

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

Ask for review again as Besnik already gave f+ on this patch.

Besnik,

Thanks for the f+ and providing your knowledge of Albanian and even proposing the layout as a patch.

As already mentioned, we need a way to move forward, not for closing the bug, but for a first step so that our users could start using an Albanian keyboard on Firefox OS.
As an open-source project, you and other community members are always welcome to provide a follow-up patch or let us know your thoughts around the default layout of Albanian.

Comment 75

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

[Blocking Requested - why for this release]:
See comment 47, this is product requirement.
This has got 2.1+, but changed back to 2.2? in comment 66.

Comment 76

[howie [:howie]]

This is 2.1+

Comment 77

[Delphine Lebédel [:delphine - Use needinfo]]

Stepping in as this is getting urgent: we're started testing l10n this week, amongst which keyboards and dictionaries for Tako requested locales. Thanks for pushing this forward

Comment 78

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

Also need a change in build/config/keyboard-layouts.json

Comment 79

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

Ah, you're right, I forgot about that.
Patch updated to address this, please help review it again?

Thanks.

Comment 80

[Jan Jongboom [:janjongboom] (inactive)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

r=me, as long as rebase, etc.

Comment 81

[Tim Guan-tin Chien [:timdream] (please needinfo)]

What's stop this from landing?

Comment 82

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Hi Tim,

This is Waiting for Gaia to be reopened, since Gaia tree is closed due to some failures of the PHX datacenter.
Thanks.

Comment 83

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Landed to Gaia master,
https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/commit/d159bccd0dcbcce75e057411caba009ac5b84ec4

--
Thanks for the review/feedback!

Comment 84

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Comment on attachment 8498639 [details] [review]
Patch V1.1

[Approval Request Comment]
[Bug caused by] (feature/regressing bug #): This is a new feature to add Albanian keyboard layout.
[User impact] if declined: Cannot present a Albanian based keyboard layout to the native user.
[Testing completed]: yes.
[Risk to taking this patch] (and alternatives if risky): pretty low, the layout file itself is just a definition of the layout without logic inside.
[String changes made]: N/A

Comment 85

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

This should not be auto uplifted to v2.1, since we changed the format of the layout definition in v2.2.

Comment 86

[Rudy Lu [:rudyl] (inactive after 2015/7/3)]

Gaia v2.1,
2147a8195714d98b60a91316429188e85e5df7de

Comment 87

[Derek Harris [:DerekH] - Dont need info. Last day 6/5/15]

This bug is verified fixed for both Flame 2.1 and Flame 2.2

The Albanian keyboard aapears in the gaia github, and can be pushed to the phone using a custom keyboards flash.

Flame 2.2 Master KK (319mb) (Full Flash)

Device: Flame 2.2 Master
BuildID: 20141011040204
Gaia: 95f580a1522ffd0f09302372b78200dab9b6f322
Gecko: 3f6a51950eb5
Gonk: 52c909e821d107d414f851e267dedcd7aae2cebf
Version: 35.0a1 (2.2 Master)
Firmware: V180
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:35.0) Gecko/35.0 Firefox/35.0


Flame 2.1 KK (319mb) (Full Flash)

Device: Flame 2.1
BuildID: 20141011000201
Gaia: f5d4ff60ffed8961f7d0380ada9d0facfdfd56b1
Gecko: d813d79d3eae
Gonk: 52c909e821d107d414f851e267dedcd7aae2cebf
Version: 34.0a2 (2.1)
Firmware: V180
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:34.0) Gecko/34.0 Firefox/34.0

Comment 88

[Geo Mealer [:geo] -- This account is inactive after 2015-07-07]

Minusing for QA automation--we don't handle l10n issues