Language switcher on the homepage #1115
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We have long wanted to include a selector, the problem is not the technology to do so, it's finding screen real estate for the selector. In any case, we use the browser language preferences when users aren't signed in, so I'm not sure why you are seeing such a problem unless you are dealing with poorly configured browsers. |
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That jquery thing certainly looks much more heavyweight than anything I was imagining. |
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Some of the features in the ULS:
To my knowledge its the most usable language selection list anyone has made till date. It could certainly use some trimming though, but the core works well. |
Yes it is a case of poorly configured browsers. Unfortunately if the only language you know well is an Indic language and are a new computer user, its not very easy to navigate to these settings. |
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I did look at it, but it's quite hard even to figure out which bits of it are source and which bits are the files we would actually need to deploy. I think it's just the src, css and images directories we would need, but it's by no means clear. I also found it quite hard to use myself, because many of the languages are only shown in their native scripts, which is fine for a native speaker but not very helpful for somebody like me trying to test it ;-) In any case it's a major project to add it. Aside from working our the exactly how to import it into our vendor tree there needs to be somebody to design a control to trigger it, and space needs to be found for that control in our layout. We would also need to add support for a cookie based language override for non-logged in users and something to use that in preference to the browser derived language as the default when an account is created. |
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Its great that its on the radar atleast. Such features makes a huge difference when talking with local government officials. |
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I've put up a basic test site at http://locale.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/ with jquery.uls integrated. Issues include:
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I've played around with it a bit, IMHO
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Showing the code was really just for debugging - it's not something I intend to be permanent. Equally showing the full name will use an awful lot of valuable space. Like I say the whole question of how to display the control needs work... |
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Something like this? (made in the chrome inspector) Would need tweaking the responsive bit (three li instead of two). When authenticated the language should be changed from the user profile, so it shouldn't need to be displayed... |
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@sabas this looks really promising 🚀 Since screen real estate is important, maybe we can show this on the homepage only if a user is not logged in or has not set a preferred language. Once the language has been set we can resign this to just the user settings page. |
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Hi there. As you can see, there's no way of knowing which languages exist. Regards. |
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That sounds like a bug, though probably in how translatewiki map the languages. We seem to have |
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That may be right, I don't know, but the issue is that those who register for the first time, have no way of knowing what they should input on that box. |
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Well for most people we pick it automatically from their browser settings - having to configure it normally is a very unusual situation. |
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Well, if the language is picked up from their browsers, there shouldn't be that box in the first place. But if it's there, it should teach people to used it correctly, rather than guessing. |
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Presumably it would be a drop-down selector choosing among our available options? |
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Well if you read the ticket you would know that is exactly what we are working on, though there's a bit of a question about where to find some space for a control to trigger it. I even started trying to resurrect and update my previous work on this last night but I haven't quite got it working again yet. |
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Yup, it looked like there was some disconnect between the comments from five years ago and the ones from this morning. |
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Yes but this is as much as anything about non-logged in users. |
Sorry, but I don't understand what this means. Can you elaborate? |
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This month, two more new OSM users complained about this. |
Please be patient. There are 390 other open issues and 43 open pull requests, and very few people working on any of them. If you look at the issues list, many are over 5 years old, and many of them are just as important as this one. If you want to see something happen more quickly, then the best option is to make a pull request with your proposed solution. We can then review it and help you with that. Also, please don't conflate multiple separate problems into one issue. This issue is about a language switcher on the homepage for people who don't have an account, whereas you are discussing a different topic, namely providing guidance for people setting their language preferences in their account settings. Mixing different topics together makes it harder to deal with either of them. |
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Hi, gravitystorm. I am patient. Almost 3 months without an answer is being patient. No matter how many open issues, people can still answer, discuss and explain things. That's what people do. For last, I did open a topic about the issue. You can find it here: As you can see, someone brought it to here and closed the issue. Regards. |
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it's terrible to see such an important and basic need is ignored for more than a decade. it's not just the main page. these pages are also affected: how do you expect non registered users to get help then? when the whole website for your help pages is in a foreign incomprehensible language. |
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sure, maybe you need time to figure out how to add a language selector. but before you figure that out, can you at least add 1 basic solution? a button/link to force the ui appear in english. you could maybe do a survey on how many percentage of OSM users actively use the site in english, or do not mind using the english interface. offer a way to switch it to the most highly used language (while you spend maybe another decade sitting on the language selector problem)! |
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@royjor2016 |
my browser is english. |
Please stay constructive. What browser do you use? Please try opening the page in incognito-mode |
here i quote from #133 (comment) from Oct 12, 2012
so OSM do not consider this basic need? or do you expect users to mess with devices they dont own when they run into such situations, be it a public computer in the library, internet cafe or your friend's laptop? |
i have set everything to english. |
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Yes we are aware that there are edge cases where it would be useful, but calling it a "basic need" is a bit extreme. In most cases auto selecting based on browser configuration works fine. |
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Please focus.
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I just want to explain a bit better why this is a problem. This is a huge, huge let down for non-English communities and newcomers. |
Friendly suggestion - you are more likely to encourage unpaid volunteers to devote their spare time to implementing your chosen feature if you phrase your comments in moderate language and without hyperbole or insults. |
Just a side note: Sorry these two sentences collide in my brain. When they use iD they have a login and are able to change language for themselves. |
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You wrote
and
If you set everything in english, then what language does the help-page show? Because if its not english it seems to be a bug and needs a separate isse. You would do good in calming down a bit. And to the topic of this issue: Yeah, i would like a language picker as well but i never had a problem. |
Can you explain how? |
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Top right, user-settings |
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Ok, and how do you know how to do that? I mean, how does a newbie know what to input in that field? |
Got a query from a teacher in India on how to get his students to sign up on localized version of the OSM website.
Currently this does not seem possible and everyone is forced to use the English version till they are logged in and can access the language settings.
How about integrating the jquery universal language selector into the website. This will allow easy switching between any language in the world in a more usable way than having to know your language ISO code.
The uls is available on all Wikimedia sites and has been well optimized for performance.
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