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From: "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>
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Subject: RE: How many languages will Apache OpenOffice support?
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:25:58 -0800
Organization: NuovoDoc
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Michael,

I think the language selections are for writing aids, not UI and Help =
internationalization.  You might want several even though your UI is =
English, for example. =20

If you look at the OOo-dev 3.4 beta release, you'll see that there is =
only a full release (with Java JRE too, I suppose, on Windows) for =
English.  This will be an English UI plus writing aids for a few flavors =
each of en, fr, and one for es.  All other languages, including any UI =
internationalization, are via langpacks, one per listed language.  The =
langpack adds a UI language and embedded help internationalizations, as =
available, and whatever writing aids there are for that language, also =
as available.

For the supplemental Italian langpack install that I did as an =
experiment, when I select the UI language to be Italian, the embedded =
help switches to Italian also.

The enumeration is here: <http://download.openoffice.org/all_beta.html>.

I notice that LibreOffice 3.4 install for Windows-en includes the =
writing aids for just over 30 native languages.  (Sometimes variants are =
in separate sets, sometimes multiple variants are in the same aid =
folder.)  The embedded help is a separate helppack download and install. =
 It's true that the installed extensions take almost 200MB when =
extracted into the file system, including non-writing-aid extensions =
that are included in the install. =20

This does not answer your question about where the bar is on UI =
internationalization, but it should make clear what a langpack can =
provide. =20

One factor in packaging has to do with the size of full installs on =
Windows and a desire to minimize the number of them.  I have no insight =
into that.  There are many variables that factor into it.  It is =
undoubtedly not a one-size-fits-all, but having the volunteers to create =
and verify many variations is an additional factor.  It might be a =
reasonable downstream business though.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Bauer [mailto:fios@akerbeltz.org]=20
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2011 04:14
To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: How many languages will Apache OpenOffice support?

[ ... ]

Sorry if the questions is naive but can you define a langpack language?=20
I never took part at that level with OOO. Are those languages without=20
localized Help? Just a question (and i have no answer) but more and more =

software I get doesn't use in-product Help but refers you to a Wiki etc. =

Might it not make sense to consider making in-product Help optional and=20
referring to a Help website for the most part?

Secondly, a more sensible, slimline install would certainly sound sense=20
to me. It's been a while since I did the install but if I recall=20
correctly, you actually download the English install with all the=20
langpacks and then have to manually pick your language. Which is=20
bonkers. If I've selected Tamil as my language of choice, then I don't=20
need my bandwidth cluttered up with the other 50 languages. I should=20
*only* get Tamil, with no further messing about. The full pack only=20
makes sense if you're installing more than one language at the same =
time.

That to me would be the two most obvious ways of saving space and=20
bandwidth, so

> - Move help and other things into a separate download file. - Reduce=20
> the doubled data and libraries in the package files. - Improve the=20
> installer to download langpacks that the user wants. - etc.

Amen to all of these!

Michael