On Wednesday, 29 May 2013 at 22:26, Kumar McMillan wrote:
> adding dev-webapps for more appy eyeballs … > > On May 28, 2013, at 12:38 PM, David Bialer <[email protected] > (mailto:[email protected])> wrote: > > > I would like to propose a change to the use of locale in the manifest file. > > Today, locale information in a manifest is self-referencing in that it > > refers to localization of the manifest data itself, like the app name and > > description. I would like to propose that the use of locale should refer to > > app content, with the manifest data as supporting information to ensure an > > app can have the right name and description for listings and indexing. The > > documentation of "locale" suggests that the locale could refer to the > > language of an app. I think it should, in fact, refer to the app languages > > as the primary information and this be more than a suggestion. There is no > > a good way to figure out which languages an app REALLY supports. We have a > > number of misleading apps in the Marketplace, where they list a locale in > > their manifest but the app doesn't support the language, so just the name > > and descriptions are translated. > > > > There are two reasons I think this change makes sense: > > > > 1. I believe that Consumers care whether an app supports a language that > > they use. It is somewhat misleading to list the description of an app > > and/or app name in when a user has selected a language, when in fact an app > > may not support that language. There is no way to tell if a language is > > actually supported until it is installed. Having this information up front, > > or even being able to filter Marketplace listings based on the language of > > the app, would be a user benefit. > > 2. For apps like "Twitter", where there is no need to put a locale overide > > in a manifest if there is no need to translate the name of the app (which > > would be the current use). There aren't clear guidelines on how they can > > ensure users know which languages the app supports. There isn't a standard > > on implementation for 'actual language of app' metadata. The language of > > the app is more important for search and indexing, and the other name and > > description just support this. And my suggested change would provide a > > standard for this. > > > > Feedback by manifest gurus appreciated. > > > I'm completely sympathetic to this position (and the W3C spec reflects the above IIRC thanks to David) - but I think this is something that really needs to be enforced at the store level - through actual verification. We can certainly say that the semantics of `locale` mean "the app is localised in these languages", but unfortunately there is no way to computationally verify this (hence it won't help too much). As such, this is really a quality assurance issue. This is also going to be a big issue for hosted web apps that can be downloaded from anywhere - there is just no way to enforce the semantics of `locale` apart from encouraging devs to follow best practice, AFAIK. Kind regards, Marcos _______________________________________________ dev-webapps mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
