Hi Stephan,
On 2 Apr 2007, at 12:49, Stephan Bergmann wrote:
Shaun McDonald wrote:
Hello,
At the moment there are a number of issues with the current
language packs for OpenOffice.org. Some platforms such as Mac OS X
don't have language packs, instead they only have full
installsets. The language packs currently have to be built on each
platform individually. This means extra compilation time and extra
storage on the mirror network since essentially the same
localisation data is packaged into a different package for every
platform.
I have a proposal for dramatically improving the current situation.
Let's have cross-platform language packs. This will mean that the
language packs will be built once, and can then be used on ANY
platform. This will save build time, especially when a builder can
just use their fastest machine, instead of having to do it once
per platform. This will free up developer and builder time, as
well as space on the mirror network.
With this change I'm looking at implementing a simple user
installation of language packs, similar to what has just been
added to OpenOffice.org 2.2 for extensions. This would enable
platform integration for the language pack installation. We could
possibly go as far as Firefox and deploy language packs in a very
similar way to extensions. We could even have the option to
install language packs just for one user or for all users of the
installation. If the platform supports it, a server deployed
location for the language packs should be possible.
This is just an idea, it needs more development before
implementation. No implementation testing has been done yet. An
initial idea check for daftness has been completed, which is why
this mail is going out. I'm looking to see if there are any
foreseeable problems with this proposal, and whether there is
backing from the whole OpenOffice.org community.
Shaun
P.S.
I'm not subscribed to all the lists that Pavel Janik suggested to
send this idea to.
I am thinking in similar directions lately (<http://blogs.sun.com/
GullFOSS/entry/bits2boxes>, <http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/
wiki/ODF_Toolkit/Efforts/Packaging_Modularization>). However, both
native, per-platform installation formats and the platform-
independent OOo extension format have their relative merits
compared with one another. Anyway, I would be happy if we could
get ahead in this area.
We should probably converge on a single mailing list for further
discussions (I personally only read two of them, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
[EMAIL PROTECTED], of which the latter did not receive the OP?), how
about [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You probably didn't get the one in [EMAIL PROTECTED] since it will
probably be in the moderation queue. I personally read
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reading your links, it seems that my proposal is just a something
extra to think about in the changes. Probably the biggest issue is
the way to compile for multiple OSs on one machine to produce a
single install disk that will work for all OSs. However I presume
what you mean is that each OS will be used to produce their specific
files, then all the parts of the CD/DVD brought together to be put on
to the CD/DVD.
Mathias Bauer has responded to this thread stating that there
platform specific strings in the language packs, however I don't
believe this is an issue with a restructuring of the way that install
sets are done. All strings for all platforms should be included into
each localisation. You could also have group localisations, where
several languages would be in the same install.
On the Mac we are looking at Universal Binaries, thus ~halving the
number of installsets required for the mac platform. This will mean
that we won't need a separate installset for both Intel and PPC
machines. <http://porting.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?
list=mac&msgNo=5125> We have had requests for partial update install
sets in the Mac port so this work would help would help with this
request.
Shaun
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