Localisation needs to be improved

Jeroen van Meeuwen kanarip at kanarip.com
Tue May 6 23:29:29 UTC 2008


Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-05-06 at 12:18 +0200, Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/LocalePreferences
>>
>> Enlist and add your comments, ideas, proposals and changes!
>>
> 
> I started doing so, but I think I'd rather send my comments here, since
> a discussion is easier via mail.
> 
> 1. '[...] will end up in all LC_* environment variables being set' - I
> don't quite follow here. env | grep LC_ comes up empty for me, only LANG
> is sent. Who is setting all the LC_ variables for you ?
> 

Try: locale. It'll match LANG unless you've tweaked it.

> 2. 'Users should be able to adjust their LC_* preferences [...]' is far
> to vague imo. What users can be expected to set, reasonably, is their
> language and location. Anything beyond that, like picking a default
> paper size or time format, seems to be much to specialized for a general
> purpose capplet, and is much better done where it is needed (ie paper
> size in the print dialog, time format in the clock). 
> 

Well, actually all these printer dialogs and clocks (including those in 
thunderbird, or the top right corner of the average GNOME desktop), 
afaik, get their default from LC_TIME. Setting LC_TIME means you do not 
have to change from 12 to 24 hour clocks and back in each and every 
application. The same goes for paper dimensions.

> 3. Note that we are aiming more or less at obsoleting s-c-date with the
> intlclock work.
> 

No we're not. One is to create a very simple interface to adjust various 
locales with whether in user space or as system defaults, which is 
completely separate from s-c-date, the other is to softly imply or 
suggest defaults from timezone configuration in s-c-date and/or 
anaconda, rather then imply defaults from s-c-language. Note that 
s-c-language of course will still need to be able to control LC_* as 
well - it might need a little enhancement.

Kind regards,

Jeroen van meeuwen
-kanarip




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