To: l10n (localization issue) CC: QA (serious bug) Hi everyone :)
I've just heard from a user who had given up on our OpenOffice.org 2.1 RC2 build, because this was what he saw when he tried to install it on Windows:
http://www.riverland.net.au/~clytie/OpenOffice/anhchup/Dung/ OpenOffice.JPG
It is, as Nam very kindly reminded me, the notorious NSIS bug. NSIS doesn't support UTF8.
I haven't run into this often, because I'm mostly working with Linux or Mac builds. I am really disappointed that it is still driving users away from localized software, and hope I've managed to get through to this user, and the rest of our users' list, that it doesn't mean the whole of OpenOffice.org looks like that. Just stick it out, guess what on earth it's saying, and you will eventually be rewarded with a screen you can read.
But users have every right to expect better than this. Do we know the status of this NSIS bug? Has it been fixed in any of the newer versions of Windows? Is it useful to pursue the issue with Microsoft at all?
And meanwhile, how are other language projects handling this? I note that not only is the entire body text and window title munged in the sample screenshot, but the button labels do not show as translated. They have indeed been translated.
Can we work around this? The only ideas I've had so far are:1. Write these strings in our ugly ASCII kludge (many of the younger people won't even recognize this survival of USENET days)
e.g. UTF8: Chào mừng bạn tải xuống OpenOffice.org 2.1 ASCII: Cha`o mu+`ng ba.n ta?i xuo^'ng OpenOffice.org 2.12. Include a link to a webpage showing the correct (UTF8) text, and explaining the issue, including the fact that it only affects the introductory screens
<sigh>As always, I would very much appreciate the benefit of your advice and experience on this topic. :)
from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN
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