Language chooser at login
I have discussed briefly with a couple of developers whether there should be a language chooser on the login screen, and we believe it's a suitable topic for this list. The background is that GDM has provided a language chooser for a long time, but GNOME has (for unclear reasons) dropped it in GDM 3, which will be an available display manager in Oneiric. LightDM, which will be the default dm in Oneiric, had a language chooser in the Natty version, but in the latest versions it has been disabled. I'm of the opinion that we should keep providing a language chooser widget on the login screen, either in the greeter or on the top panel. Before giving the reasons for my view, I'd like to clarify which kind of language chooser it is that I advocate. In short, I'd like it to work as it currently does in Natty. Unlike before, when there was a plain locale chooser that didn't play well with the Lucid and Maverick versions of language-selector, in Natty GDM's language chooser - has a list whose options represent available translations (which in some languages, such as English and Spanish, means a significantly shorter list than before), - persistently changes the user language, and - is well synchronized with language-selector. Over to my arguments: If you change the display language within a session, it does not take effect in that session, but only after you have logged out and logged in again. The language setting is one of the few things that works that way. Those who typically make use of the language chooser on the login screen are reasonably users who alter between two or more display languages. Maybe that group is a small share of the Ubuntu users, but to them it's much more convenient to be able to set the language before logging in, compared to logging in, opening language-selector, changing the language, logging out and then logging in again. Future growth of Ubuntu users will probably be higher outside the English speaking countries than the average growth, so both the number and percentage of multi-lingual users, and consequently also the group that appreciate an opportunity to change language at login, ought to increase. From an Ubuntu user perspective, the question isn't if we should add a language chooser to the login screen, but the question is whether it would be a good idea to remove the feature. Is there any disadvantage with it worth mentioning for those who don't use it? Has anybody complained of its pure existence? ;-) i18n is a key point in the Ubuntu philosophy, and the relative importance of i18n matters in general is growing. In the light of that, I think that removing the language chooser from the login screen would send the wrong signals to prospective Ubuntu users. So let's not do so, please. :) -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
Re: Language chooser at login
I've cc'd in Mika and John, who worked on the design of the new greeter (not the greeter that is currently delivered with Oneiric) and Charline who does user testing as they will probably have good opinions on this feature. I'm of the opinion that we should keep providing a language chooser widget on the login screen, either in the greeter or on the top panel. Before giving the reasons for my view, I'd like to clarify which kind of language chooser it is that I advocate. This seems to be completely the opposite way we should tackle this. We need to know what requirements the user has for language support, and this will determine what GUI elements are appropriate to achieve this. If you change the display language within a session, it does not take effect in that session, but only after you have logged out and logged in again. The language setting is one of the few things that works that way. Yes, it's an unfortunate limitation of the system we use. Those who typically make use of the language chooser on the login screen are reasonably users who alter between two or more display languages. Maybe that group is a small share of the Ubuntu users, but to them it's much more convenient to be able to set the language before logging in, compared to logging in, opening language-selector, changing the language, logging out and then logging in again. Can you provide some examples of these types of users, and why/how they currently switch language? From what I've gathered talking to people the classes of user are: 1. Users who set the system language at install/first boot time, and never change it (the vast majority) 2. English as a second language users, who switch between their native language and English (this is a class of user I don't understand well). I think the reason for this is because the translations are not always good enough? Is this a power user feature? 3. Testers/developers who want to easily change language for testing (their requirements should not be exposed to normal users) I haven't heard of any standard user requirements to switch between more than two languages, or two languages that do not include English (please post here if you know of any). Future growth of Ubuntu users will probably be higher outside the English speaking countries than the average growth, so both the number and percentage of multi-lingual users, and consequently also the group that appreciate an opportunity to change language at login, ought to increase. And I'd expect these users to use their preferred language and not need to change it at all. We need to work out what the group that appreciate an opportunity to change language at login are trying to achieve. The multi-lingual users I've talked to do not change their language settings frequently. From an Ubuntu user perspective, the question isn't if we should add a language chooser to the login screen, but the question is whether it would be a good idea to remove the feature. Is there any disadvantage with it worth mentioning for those who don't use it? Has anybody complained of its pure existence? ;-) Users who don't use this feature are not going to miss it. Users who do need to be able to achieve the functionality they had before, but not necessarily using the same method. There are disadvantages to keeping this feature: - This feature is quite complex to support. - By having this feature both in the login screen and in the control center we are duplicating functionality but providing an inconsistent method of configuring it. - Users can accidentally change it, giving an opportunity to make their session unusable. -- ubuntu-desktop mailing list ubuntu-desktop@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-desktop
