Openstreetmap-website: Language switcher on the homepage

[planemad]

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.

[tomhughes]

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.

[tomhughes]

That jquery thing certainly looks much more heavyweight than anything I was imagining.

[planemad]

Some of the features in the ULS:

• Supports all Mediawiki supported languages
• Languages grouped according to region and script type
• Multilingual search
• Intelligent list based on user location
• Extensively tested for usability with users who dont know English

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.

[planemad]

so I'm not sure why you are seeing such a problem unless you are dealing with poorly configured browsers

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.

[tomhughes]

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.

[planemad]

Its great that its on the radar atleast. Such features makes a huge difference when talking with local government officials.

[tomhughes]

I've put up a basic test site at http://locale.apis.dev.openstreetmap.org/ with jquery.uls integrated. Issues include:

• Styling and location of control
• Scary interactions between our CSS and the control's CSS which is not well scoped
• Need to make sure that a user creating an account correctly inherits any cookie set locale

[simonpoole]

I've played around with it a bit, IMHO

• the icon doesn't work and is graphically messy, don't have an alternative right now, outside of using a flag which however has its own problems
• I suspect positioning the control between the About tab and Login button would work better.
• I'm not sure if using abbreviations really works at least as said above it needs a better icon,

[tomhughes]

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...

[sabas]

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...

[planemad]

@sabas this looks really promising :rocket:

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.

[tomhughes]

Issues #132 and #133 relate to this.

[Ivans-Git]

Las cuestiones # 132 y # 133 se relacionan con esto.

Browsers do not offer all the languages that osm.org offers...

[AntMadeira]

Hi there.
The current problem with languages on the OSM website is this:
https://i.imgur.com/cqkIKxM.png

As you can see, there's no way of knowing which languages exist.
If a dropdown is technically difficult, how about creating a link or icon with a pop up message listing the available language abbreviations?
For example: two years ago, when I registered, I chose "pt" as the logical abbreviation to use in my account, but found out that, for some reason, there were Portuguese and English strings mixed all over the place. A few weeks ago, I discovered by trial and error, that I should have used "pt-pt", since I use European Portuguese.
I think this is important for newcomers and newbies, and it would improve greatly their experience with OSM website.

Regards.

[tomhughes]

That sounds like a bug, though probably in how translatewiki map the languages.

We seem to have pt, pt-PT and pt-BR which is not really right - it would be better to have pt and pt-BR and I think that is what we originally have but TW has added in pt-PT which has kind of broken things.

[AntMadeira]

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.

[tomhughes]

Well for most people we pick it automatically from their browser settings - having to configure it normally is a very unusual situation.

[AntMadeira]

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.
I know several people from Portuguese and Brazilian communities that had the same problem I had these last two years. Something that could be avoided with a simple tooltip info box.

[migurski]

Presumably it would be a drop-down selector choosing among our available options?

[tomhughes]

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.

[migurski]

Yup, it looked like there was some disconnect between the comments from five years ago and the ones from this morning. https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/{user}/account has a “Preferred Languages” text box that @AntMadeira calls out as a space for a control.

[tomhughes]

Yes but this is as much as anything about non-logged in users.

[AntMadeira]

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?
What @migurski said makes sense. The original issue was about a language switcher on the homepage, but what I'm talking about is a language selector or some kind of guide on the user's settings page.

[AntMadeira]

This month, two more new OSM users complained about this.
Can someone take a look at this issue, please?

[gravitystorm]

Can someone take a look at this issue, please?

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.

[AntMadeira]

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.
I'm not a coder, I'm an humble mapper that receives questions about something that should be simple to solve and that causes problems to the Portuguese community.

For last, I did open a topic about the issue. You can find it here:
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/2581

As you can see, someone brought it to here and closed the issue.

Regards.