Localized xfce4rc files...

[Jasper Huijsmans]

Hey Tyler,

Op ma 22-12-2003, om 18:29 schreef Tyler W. Wilson:
...
> The scenario I would like to handle - which I don't think is too
> far-fetched - is to be able to switch locales under the same user and
> have the proper language come up. Given this, here are my humble
> suggestions.
> 
> - Xfce should always look at the currently set locale, and look for an
> xfce4rc file with that locale extension. Even if there is a xfce4rc file
> with no extension (which should be the default locale "C" or "POSIX").
> 
> - If Xfce cannot find the proper xfce4rc file, then it should look for
> one in the sys rc dir, and copy it with the same name to the users rc
> dir, maintaining the extension.
> 
> This would allow a user to have multiple rc files in different
> languages, and switch between them simply by changing the locale settings.
> 

Your comments are based on a situation where a user frequently switches
between locales. I personally would be very surprised if this was a
common usage pattern. And even if it was I would expect my customized
version of the panel to be used and not the system default one if I
decided to change locales

Current behaviour is very well defined:

First use:
- use locale specific system rc file, fall back to English version.

After that:
- use user's custom rc file (supposedly localized in the user's
preferred language).


> On a side note, I noted that the Xfce web site mentions it follows the
> freedesktop.org standards in many cases. But going through all this I
> found that they do not use the Desktop Entry Specification, which would
> be used for the links in the panel, I would think. They handle different
> languages with different key name, so all languages go into one file.
> 

Well, we try to use standards mostly to improve interoperability. This
is a slightly different case. An interesting idea though. It doesn't map
exactly to the panel' use, even when using the menu spec. Difficulties
include:
* name clashes (you can have an application multiple times in the panel
with different options. So probably we'd have to use random names or
names based on positioning.
* submenus: menu spec, perhaps.
* positioning. Either encoded in the filename or as extra field in the
file.
* plugins.
* settings.

Moreover, this doesn't help much with localization of customized items,
unless you turn the item property dialog into a full desktop entry
editor. I have a feeling that will not be pretty.

So, in the end I don't expect it to be worth the trouble to switch to
using desktop entries. I will be looking into it a bit closer for 4.4,
though, so I may still change my mind.

> Anyway, hope this is all useful, and I hope it gets 'fixed'.
> 

Your comments are very much appreciated, but I am not convinces there is
a problem that needs fixing, yet.

	Jasper