OneClickI18n

Summary

This specification will discuss how we can enhance language-selector such that upon a given set of lanugages chosen a user wish to be able to input it, GNOME keyboard notifier gets autoconfigured to include them, with a sane default for switching between them.

Rationale

Making Ubuntu a de facto desktop distribution means we have to make it as easy as we can for a user to get the preferred work environment he desires, in the quickest way possible. Input language is no exception to this, and a system supporting a quick and easy way to have an desired input langugage to type in make its way to a user's heart quicker, and for long time. For the next release, we should enhance language-selector tool such that upon choosing a language for input to type in, GNOME keyboard notifier gets autoconfigured with a sane group shift behavior ready for use.

Scope & Use cases

  • Liat is a new Ubuntu user. Her mother tounge is Hebrew. She wants to be able to type and read hebrew using her new Ubuntu installation, she chose "Hebrew" during installation. However, when finally arriving at her desktop, she is unable to type Hebrew. She wished installation process would have taken care of this and leave her with Hebrew enabled desktop after install, or just choose her language in one click from the language-selector, and have everything else automatically configured for her.
  • Mustafa is a part time system administrator for one of the computer labs at the university where he studies. The students using this computer lab are of varying nationalities and use different languages as their mother tongue. They need to be able to commmunicate and use both English, and their native language such as Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish etc.. Instead of thinking in advance which languages to include the default installation over all the workstations, he'd like to have a way to let each student choose his desired language and use it, relieving him from the hassle and decision.

Design

  • ChooseYourLanguageDialog:

    • One pop up window, possibly a derivation or trim sized "language-selector" tool.

    • Asks one question, expects >= 1 responses, which are language the user selected.

  • User Input:
    • On first login to a fresh installation.
    • On subsequent invocation of a "choose your language in one question/click" tool.
    • User input should be minimized:
      • Use some sane default for group shift behavior for switching inputs.
      • Allow user to modify afterwards.
  • Result:
    • System is ready for input in a selected language(s).

Prerequisites

If integrated with language-selector, we need to teach or create a backend for it that will be able to modify the ~/. of the user who executed it in the first place.

Workflow

This can probably be integrated with language-selector, given the list of languages with "Writing Aids" checked for.

  • Sanity:
    • If GNOME Keyboard Indicator is not installed or not added to the panel, ask user to install.
    • Automatically add the indicator to the panel.
  • With each LANG chosen:
    • Add to keyboard indicator.
    • Ask/Offer Group shift behavior.

Implementation

Code

Data preservation and migration

  • Preserve previous GNOME kbd notifier's configuration.

Outstanding issues

Comments

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec

OneClickI18n (last edited 2008-08-06 16:35:17 by localhost)