Mozilla Localization Project FAQ |
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Mozilla Localization Project Staff |
MLP [Localization Project home] | [Localization docs] | [Frequently Asked Questions]
Introduction |
This document should cover all the information doesn't fit in the other MLP pages, in a question and answer format.
Ideally these are the problems localizers most often stumble into; the questions asked again and again from the newcomers of the l10n newsgroup. Having the answers sorted here should save some pain and time for everyone in future.
The contents of this document (as, and more than the other MLP pages), is always open to the comments and critics of the mozilla.org localization newsgroup.
Contents |
Localization
Troubleshooting
Tools
General
| G.01 | Where are placed .XUL, .JS, .CSS, .DTD, .properties, .RDF, .CSS, .XBL (etc!) files used by the user interface? |
| G.02 | What are those .JAR files? How can I manage their contents? |
Localization |
L.01: The comments in the dtd /
properties files says I can't translate the Command Keys and
some terms of the interface. What would happen if I'm going to
change them?
You're free to change whatever makes sense for your
culture (and for the users!), as long you're able to recognize what
the program needs to find for its internal use. Translating
every term sometimes doesn't makes a good service to the mean user,
letting every computer related term in English couldn't help beginners
either. It's matter of sense of balance.
So the question become..
L.02: Which parts of the localizable
strings needs to be left untouched for the program to run properly?
Learn to read every comment left by developers in the dtd and properties
files. They might say something not covered in this FAQ, or doesn't easily
fall in a rough categorization.
As each language uses a different sentence ordering. Strings which need
to be completed with runtime information contain placeholders. The
localizer can put placeholders in any position inside the string,
as long the program is able to find them at runtime and replace them with
the relevant information. You clearly need to type them in your localized
string exactly as they appear in the original strings. Some common
appearance of these placeholders are:
&entityname; (an XML entity named "entityname",
sometimes called inside another entity definition), %S, $1%S, %lu ..
(C style placeholders).
Always with an eye to the localization comments, don't get fooled by
parameters accessible to the localizers, in the form of localizable
strings. These special strings contains values the interface uses
to modify its appearance and functionality. You'll of course need
to put a relevant value (a number, true, false..)
instead of translating the text, if you wish the program doesn't
loose some functionality.
Troubleshooting |
T.01: Why some localized dialogs (e.g.
Preferences) doesn't resize to let the text fit in the window?
Many dialog windows take their height and width size from localizable
strings. You need to change the numbers in those strings until the
dialogs can contain the localized text.
Remember: sizes should always fit even on low resolution display (at least
640x480 pixels), used by people with small monitors or sight impaired
people.
Often these numbers are followed by the em or px units.
The former is the mean width of one character, the latter the display
pixel unit.
T.02: After installing my .XPI language
package, the installation window returns a cryptic number. What's
happened?
The XPI Install
error codes are defined in the
nsInstall.h
header file.
T.03: How can I monitor the installation
of my XPI language package?
Mozilla logs each XPI installation in the install.log file.
You can find this file either in the Mozilla binaries folder, or in
the user profile folder (see the Release Notes
page for your Mozilla version to see the default folder location for each
OS).
Beside listing every new component registered, and the path of
these installed resources, this file log the output of each
logComment() call in the install script.
T.04: Opening one particular window,
some red on yellow messages appear, talking something about an XML
Parser error. How can I fix this?
The likely causes to this problem are: you didn't provided an entity
definition the XML Parser is searching for, or the XML Parser stumbled
in an illegal character.
Start trying to find out the guilty DTD file. The XML Parser usually
signal the XML (or XUL) file where the error occurred, and the position
inside this file (row and column). Opening the XUL file (search inside
the compressed .jar inside the chrome/ folder) you can see
which DTD files are loaded.
Sometimes the XML Parser also indicates the entity name, so you can quickly
track the problematic string, by searching it in all your localized files.
If you can't find the entity with the relevant name, the problem is likely
you didn't have such string in your localized files. You need to import
all the new strings might be introduced with new releases.
Also remember not all the characters are legal in
XML strings.
T.05: I've edited the dtd and
properties files, but once installed all but the Latin letters (A-Z,
a-z), appears as garbled text. What I did wrong?
You didn't used the right character encoding for the
DTD or properties files, probably
modifying them using a simple text editor. You need to provide .DTD
files encoded in UTF-8 encoding and .properties files in the Escaped
Unicode encoding.
Tools |
O.01: Mozilla Translator 5.x:
When I open the Chrome View window I can see the files listed on the
left, but no imported / translated strings. What's wrong?
Mozilla Translator needs for its normal operation the presence of a
cache/ folder, inside the folder in which the application
has been started.
So you should check: the folder exist, otherwise create one with the name
"cache", then restart MT; you're starting MT from the folder containing
cache/, it's easy to verify this is the case if the
Glossary.zip file are loaded / saved from the same folder;
you —and hence the MT application— have enough rights to
read and write in this cache/ folder (e.g. try to delete each
file in it).
O.02: Mozilla Translator 5.x:
Exporting a JAR or an XPI package returns an error. How can I get
out of this situation?
Try to empty the cache/ folder where MT is run from all the
files in it, and the operative system default temporary files location
(e.g. in MS Windows take a look in the %WINDIR%\Temp folder )
from any *.tmp file. Then restart MT and try again.
General |
G.01: Where are placed
.XUL, .JS, .CSS, .DTD, .properties, .RDF, .CSS, .XBL (etc!) files
used by the user interface?
G.02: What are those .JAR files? How can I manage their contents?
JAR files are compressed archives containing registered user interface
resource files. They are collected inside a folder named chrome/,
inside the folder containing the application executables. On multiuser
environments JARs can be installed into a chrome/ folder inside
the user profile directory (see the Release Notes
page for your Mozilla version to see the default folder location for each
OS).
You can see / extract their contents with a conventional
PKzip compatible tool.