[Sugar-devel] Language Support

[Walter Bender]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:13 AM, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
> Hi, Sam
>
> In Rwanda, the students found the language panel (after all, they are
> supposed to try everything) and switched their system to Arabic, probably
> because it looked interesting and was at the top of the list. However,
> finding a teacher able to switch back to English was a bit trickier.
>
> Actually, I think the developers haven't really thought through the
> deployment process. The computers are typically batch flashed before being
> assigned to students.
> So the setting of nickname, color and now gender and grade level can't be
> done at that time. So in our workshops, we need to explain to the teachers
> how to
> provide (or have the children provide) the correct information through
> settings. Despite being one laptop per child, in reality many deployments
> share one laptop
> among several students (e.g. class 4 in this hour and class 5 in the next
> hour). As a consequence, the statistics gathered by these settings are
> really not accurate.

Not sure what you mean bu accurate, but clearly under these
circumstances the stats package that Martin developed would apply to
groups of students rather than individual students. It could still
inform us regarding what apps are used in the aggregate.

> Several schools set the nick to a local id number which is also written on
> the XO. This ID is how students identify which one is theirs in the charging
> rack.
>
> So designing a specific interaction on the basis that it will be done by an
> experienced computer user and that others will be done by students and
> teachers is difficult.

It is inevitable that some laptops are going to have the language set
to a language which makes settings difficult to manage. Maybe we
should have some way to resetting to the language in which the laptop
was originally flashed -- a single button click on the language
control panel section? This will require our keeping track of the
initial language, something we don't currently track in Sugar.
Thoughts on this?

>
> Tony
>
>
> On 08/12/2015 01:56 PM, Sam P. wrote:
>
> Hey Tony,
>
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:51 PM Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Sam
>>
>> My concern is not the execution of the panel, but how we explain it to
>> users. Remember our target audience is teachers and students in primary
>> school in the
>> developing world with little or no prior computer experience. As
>> developers, we often see things as simple because we have used many others
>> like it. It may not
>> be so simple to those who do not have that experience.
>
>
> Yep.  But we don't have a selector in the intro, so they'd be pretty amazing
> to find the language settings if it wasn't configured by their deployment :)
>
>>
>>
>> However, we probably should think about the dialect/region selection. If I
>> have selected Arabic, perhaps the dialect/region list should be in Arabic.
>
>
> Ticket:  https://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/4449
>
>>
>>
>> We may also want to think about that list - do the entries represent
>> countries where the language is spoken or represent dialects? I suspect the
>> lists were
>> copied from earlier releases.
>
>
> They're just the system languages, so that is an issue for the distribution.
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Tony
>>
>>
>> On 08/12/2015 01:38 PM, Sam P. wrote:
>>
>> Hi Tony,
>>
>> The control panel is very simple.  The left column is the language and the
>> right column is the region/dialect.
>>
>> Maybe that should be a column header?
>>
>> Also, there is no conflicting "+" and "add" buttons.  The dropdown for the
>> language selectors in a up or down arrow, while the add a new language
>> button is a "+".  The hitbox for the expand/contract the dropdown includes
>> the button and the label, making it more discoverable.
>>
>> Maybe it should use palettes (or modals with search!) to be more
>> consistent, but it is actually a very nice ui considering it does a very
>> complex job.
>>
>> I opened the control panel on the same OLPC OS image that you are running,
>> can can not reproduce many (any?) of the issues you're describing.
>>
>> Please consider opening separate tickets for the issues.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Sam
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:26 PM Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> To continue the story. The way it works, you click on the button to the
>>> left of the language (English) to
>>> get a list. You click on the language to get a dialect (or region?). You
>>> click on the dialect to select it. You then click on the
>>> + button to get it 'really' selected. You then click on the top right
>>> button to restart as always.
>>>
>>> After restarting the added language (German) is the system language.
>>> However, when going back to the
>>> language selection in settings, German is the only language shown. So
>>> you need to click to open the language
>>> list, click on English. This opens up the options of Australien and USA.
>>> Incidentally, that is now the only line, the German
>>> option has disappeared.
>>>
>>> I tried Arabic. There are 12 regions or dialects available. That list is
>>> in English. I selected Egypt and was able to
>>> switch to Arabic. To switch back, I clicked on the button to the left of
>>> Arabic (only line). It lists alternate languages
>>> in a mixture of Arabic and Latin alphabets. English is evidently shown
>>> in Arabic but Spanish is Spanish. I selected
>>> Spanish getting 21 regional choices all in Arabic except USA. I selected
>>> USA and switched the system to Spanish.
>>>
>>> I then went back to settings and got a list of languages in Spanish
>>> (Inglés). I selected that option and got a choice
>>> of Australia and USA. I was able to get back to the original English,
>>> USA option.
>>>
>>> Tony
>>>
>>>
>>> On 08/12/2015 12:55 PM, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>> > I was surprised and embarrassed yesterday trying to show how easy it
>>> > is to switch
>>> > languages. I was using a 13.2.5 image.
>>> >
>>> > In previous versions, you go to settings and language and get a long
>>> > list of supported
>>> > languages. In 13.2.5, you get a statement: 'Add languages in the order
>>> > you prefer'.
>>> > So I clicked on + to add German. It added another row: English USA + -
>>> >
>>> > In the press of the moment, I couldn't find any other language that
>>> > English USA.
>>> >
>>> > However, today I found that the trick is to click on the button to the
>>> > left of the word English. This
>>> > opens the expected list. Click on German adds a line with dialects:
>>> > Austria, Belgium, Germany, ...
>>> >
>>> > Unfortunately, the use of the word 'add' together with a '+' button at
>>> > least in my case led to confusion.
>>> >
>>> > Tony
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>> > .
>>> >
>>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org