Pidgin 2.7.2 released!

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 12:08:52PM -0400, Daniel Atallah wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 12:00, Javier Fernandez-Sanguino <jfs at debian.org> wrote:
> > On 26 July 2010 17:23, David Bala??ic <david.balazic at comtrade.com> wrote:
> >> Also having to set env variables to make a selection is...
> >> C'mon, it is 2010!
> >
> > Pidgin in Windows currently relies on a registry key which is:
> >
> > a) set by the installer
> > b) difficult to change (you need to knwo the NSIS codes and language associated)
> 
> This isn't entirely accurate, see
> http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/Using%20Pidgin#HowdoesPidginforWindowsdeterminewhichlanguagetouse

Agree, it doesn't rely on only the registry key. But the use of PIDGINLANG
environment variable as an alternatible is not that much of an option when:

a) users have to select the 'localization' component in advance
b) the Environment variables in Windows can only be setup by the
Administrator User. In corporate environments where users
are running as non-admin this is not an option.

The best option would be to have a registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER which
the user can control without being an admin.

> > As far a I know there's no need to use environment variables. That is
> > not what I was suggesting. Windows provides information of user's
> > chosen locale and selected language in his environment. Currently, as
> > far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong, this is:
> 
> > a) not used by the installer to automatically select and install the
> > proper localization
> 
> I believe that this is incorrect; NSIS will choose the current locale
> by default if it is available.
> Also, the Pidgin translation for the selected installer language
> (however it is selected) will be installed by default.

That's not what I've seen in my tests. In a Windows XP system localized into
Spanish the installer did not select the 'es' localization component by
itself.


> > b) not used by Pidgin in Windows to select one of the available
> > localizations at %ProgramFiles%\Pidgin\locale\
> 
> This is also not exactly correct; it is the default behavior of Pidgin
> to use the system locale if there is no overridden selection (e.g. by
> the user's language selection in the installer or via the PIDGINLANG
> environment variable).

However, on a default installation (using the installer) there *is* an
overriden selection through the language selection in the installer. So the
net result is that the translation is not show to the user.

I'm wondering if the installer should  set the registry key if installing in
English. Maybe it would be best that, if English is selected, a prompt is
show to the user wether to install (or not) *all* languages available and
prevent setting the registry key so the user could select from those.

> > It is, however, used by the installer to automatically select the
> > language shown through the installation process. So I guess a) could
> > be easily fixed, isn't it so?
> >
> > Time to report these as a bug in trac, or have they been reported already?
> 
> I don't think it is that simple, please see the FAQ about how it works
> and think about why changing that might be (even more) confusing to
> people.

>From my point of view it's simple: if the user selects only *one*
localization component when 'English' has been selected he is effectively
saying "I want this language". The installation system could help by setting
up the registry key accordingly. 

That is not confusing IMHO. BTW the FAQ does not actually document
the registry key used by the installer to define the language.

> I still maintain that the "real" problem is that the desired language
> doesn't appear in the initial installer list - if it did, nobody would
> complain about anything else because everything would work as they
> expect it to.

No, the *real* problem is that *if* the desired language does not appear in
the initial installer it is quite difficult for an average user to setup his
preferred language choice.

He has to:

- Understand that 'Localization component' equals to 'Translation to a given
  language'
- Be able to make the relation between ISO codes (es, fr, etc.) to languages
- Be able to find the FAQ wiki and make the changes.

The issue here is that Pidgin was translated to Spanish, even if the
installer was not, and our Spanish users had no clue as to how to set it up
after a default install. Not even by using Google to try to find the answer
"How does Pidgin for Windows determine which language to use?" is not
quite the same as "How do I change the language of Pidging in Windows?"
(FAQ item which I have just introduced)

Regards

Javier