You are currently viewing a snapshot of www.mozilla.org taken on April 21, 2008. Most of this content is highly out of date (some pages haven't been updated since the project began in 1998) and exists for historical purposes only. If there are any pages on this archive site that you think should be added back to www.mozilla.org, please file a bug.

Skip to main content

Regional Content Bundling

newsgroup discussion
mailing list
Tao Cheng
[main page]
[how to]

Goals

The goals of Regional Content Bundling are outlined as follows:
  • Provide better and timely content services to international users.
  • Provide more content service choices to international users.
  • Remove the hurdles (time and re-installation) of downloading localized clients.
  • Reduce the cost and shorten the timeline of the localization process.
  • Reduce possibility of human error in the localization process.
  • Provide ability for advanced users to add new regional content and/or switch content and/or UI.

Glossary

  • Regional Content: The content services that are provided by remote web servers. In Seamonkey, These include built-in URLs, Taskbar, Search menu, Internet Search engines default, Bookmarks, Sidebar Channels, etc.
  • Language Pack: all localizable resources including Regional Contents and other localizable resources such as UI language files.
  • Profile-bound localizable resources: resources that are bound to a particular user profile. Their initial values are obtained from the "defaults" directory during profile creation and might be customized thereafter in user sessions. These include Internet Search engines default (search.rdf), Bookmarks (bookmarks.html), Sidebar Defaults (panes.rdf), mimeTypes.rdf, default-message.rdf, etc...
  • Runtime switchables: resources that are not bound to any profile. These include most of the UI languages, built-in URLs (builtinURLs.rdf), Taskbar (taskbar.rdf), Search menu (searchMenu.rdf), etc...

Bundling Plan

The proposed plan follows:

  • Product packaging and installation. In standard package, only the US langpack, "langen.xpi" and "regus.xpi", is downloaded and installed
  • Downloading. There will be a link in the Browser's UI, "View|Set Language/Region> Download More", pointing to "Localization Contributions" from Mozilla community. Users can download their choice, if available, of UI language and regional content at will.
  • Runtime. Two ways to switch langpacks:
    1. The user will be given a choice of language packs in creating a new profile. In such case, all profile-bound files will be copied into the created profile directory. The language pack of this new profile will be set to the selected one, too. Running the client software with any profile created through this route will see the UI language and regional contents reflect the selection.
    2. In the browser UI menu, "View|Set Language/Region >", shows all the installed langpacks. Selecting a langpack will cause the selection being stored into the user's current profile. Users will be prompt to relaunch the client to use the new langpack. Only the Runtime Switchable resources are changed. Profile-bound resources stay the same.
  • Settings in existing user profile will not be tampered.
  • Profile creation that does not go through the ProfileCreation UI will use the default language pack ("regus.xpi" or "US") for the download build (labeled as "English (US)".
  • In the future, there will be locale-switcher UI in the Preferences dialog. It probably will be similar to Theme switcher. There will be UI in the Locale Switcher (of Preferences dialog) for downloading more langpacks.
  • The download and install of each additional language pack will also select the new language pack (but not overriding the default files in bin/defaults/*.)

Localizable Preferences (+: aim & *-ns.js are Netscape 6 client only files)

From -> To name values for JA build done
aim.js+ -> aim.properties aim.throbber.url   x
aim.properties+ aim.Language ja no move needed but value is localizable. Q to momoi.
  aim.Country jp no move needed but value is localizable. Q to momoi.
  aim.LanguageCode 11 no move needed but value is localizable. Q momoi.
all.js -> navigator.properties browser.startup.homepage   x
  browser.throbber.url   x
  network.search.url   obsolete?
  keyword.URL   ?
  browser.search.defaulturl   x
  browser.related.provider   ?
  browser.related.detailsProvider   ?
  wallet.Server   x
  keyword.enabled    
  general.useragent.locale ja-JP x Q to momoi
  network.hosts.smtp_server    
  network.hosts.pop_server    
  intl.accept_languages ja x  Q to momoi
  intl.accept_charsets   not used for now. Q to momoi
  intl.charset.default Shift_JIS -- Mac/Win, EUC-JP -- Unix Q to momoi
  intl.charset.detector ja_parallel_state_machine Has not been moved yet but this shouldbe localizable.Qto ftang/momoi
  intl.charsetmenu.browser.static Shift_JIS, EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP, ISO-8859-1 x Q to momoi
  intl.charsetmenu.mailedit ** The values below are Case-Sensitive! They must be entered as is!! We missed this in Beta2! The following values should not change from language to language. But each locale needs to ship with the same set. Check for accuracy **

ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15, armscii-8, ISO-8859-4, ISO-8859-14, ISO-8859-2, GB2312, Big5, KOI8-R, windows-1251, KOI8-U, ISO-8859-7, ISO-2022-JP, EUC-KR, ISO-8859-10, ISO-8859-3, TIS-620, ISO-8859-9, UTF-8, VISCII

 x

Q to momoi
  SpellChecker.DefaultLanguage   Legacy items from 4.x. Currently not used in NS6. kinwill consider something similar for future. Q to momoi.
  SpellChecker.DefaultDialect   Legacy items from 4.x. Currently not used in NS6. kinwill consider something similar future. Q to momoi.
  sidebar.customize.all_panels.url   don't move
all-ns.js+ -> navigator.properties (ns) browser.startup.homepage   x
  browser.throbber.url   x
  timebomb.expiration_time    
  timebomb.timebombURL"    
  browser.registration.enable   always true
  browser.registration.url   x
  browser.registration.domain   x
config.js -> navigator.properties startup.homepage_override_url   x
config-ns.js+ -> navigator.properties (ns) startup.homepage_override_url   x
editor.js -> editor.properties editor.throbber.url   x
editor-ns.js+ -> editor.properties (ns) editor.throbber.url   x
mailnews.js -> messenger.properties mailnews.send_default_charset ISO-2022-JP (uppercase only) x Q to momoi
  mailnews.view_default_charset ISO-2022-JP (uppercase only) x Q to momoi
  messenger.throbber.url   x
  compose.throbber.url   x
  addressbook.throbber.url   x
  ldap_2.servers.netcenter.customDisplayUrl    
  mailnews.start_page.url    
  mail.directory_names.first_first    
mailnews-ns.js+ -> messenger-ns.properties mailnews.start_page.url    
  messenger.throbber.url   x
  compose.throbber.url   x
  addressbook.throbber.url   x
  mail.absync.port    
  mail.absync.server    
  mail.absync.firsttime  

Files that contain Regional Content (revised July17, 2000)

  • bin/defaults/isp/[US/]+
    • aol.rdf  -- provided by local ISP
    • nswebmail.rdf
  • bin/defaults/messenger/[US/]Template+
  • bin/defaults/profile/[US/]
    • bookmarks.html - default bookmarks for new profile
    • default-messages.rdf - default message for Messenger
    • mimeTypes.rdf - referenced by Helper App.
    • panels.rdf - default Sidebar Panels
    • search.rdf - default search engines
  • bin/chrome/locale/US/
    • aim/+
      • contents.rdf - chrome registry information
      • aim.properties -- (in aim.js block) e.g. aim.throbber.url=http://home.netscape.com
      • App.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • App-shrimp.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • Chat.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • chatContent.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • chatRoom.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • IM.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
    • communicator/
      • contents.rdf
      • builtinURLs.rdf
      • taskbar.rdf
    • communicator/search/
      • search-panel.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)
    • editor/
      • contents.rdf
      • editor.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)
    • global/
      • contents.rdf
      • builtinURLs.rdf
      • searchMenu.rdf
      • brand.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • brand.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • downloadProgress.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)
    • messenger/
      • messenger.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • messenger-ns.properties+ -- (at the bottomof the file)
    • messenger/addressbook/
      • ABSynch.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
    • navigator/ -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • navigator.dtd -- (at the bottom of the file)
      • navigator.properties -- (at the bottom of the file)