[Sugar-devel] Language Support

[Tony Anderson]

Hi, Walter

When I saw the language panel, I thought it was trying to work like the 
Mate keyboard panel. You start with a default. You
add options. Then you use the panel to select an option. Such an 
approach would make it easy to 'get out of' a wrong selection.

Tony


On 08/12/2015 03:34 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
> 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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