Think Global, Make Locales!

Two very useful new localization related features have been added to AMO (addons.mozilla.org) recently.

Locale statistics

Add-on statistics pages are now capable of listing the total number of daily users by locale. Awesome.

Take a look at my stats for Flagfox, as an example:

Flagfox stats as of this posting

This means that extension developers are now armed with the data to actually request specific localizations that their users would use but currently do not have.

This new set of statistics is available by selecting “Locale” in the drop down menu on the left. The other new feature in there is the ability to break down downloads by method, which too is quite helpful. Note that while statistics tracking is available for all add-ons, the page must be set to “public” mode by the developer to be accessible by others.

Locale completeness checks

The AMO add-on validator now has a test to automatically check for incomplete locales. (see announcement)

L10n validation

On upload of an extension file to AMO, the add-on validator will now warn you if it has missing or untranslated strings. You can also (re)check your files via the “Validation” column in the “Versions and Files” view in the developer control panel. (files checked before this test was added need to be rechecked manually to see new results) Logged in non-developer users are also free to upload XPIs to check here.

Of course, as with some of the other warnings in this thing, please remember, it’s only a warning. Don’t worry too much about rejection from AMO merely for having some untranslated strings. Flagfox, for example, has 1807 “unmodified translations” in 18 different locales. Granted, I’m a special case here with hundreds of different country names that need to be localized, quite a few of which use the same word as in English. (if you package correctly it all gets compressed out nicely in the end so it doesn’t waste installer size) So just keep in mind that your mileage may vary.

Many thanks to AMO for these very nice and useful new features.

1. 
   Sonickydon said...
   11:47:14 - October 31st, 2009

   If only more developers would allow their statistics to be public, this new feature would be perfect for localizers too!
   Specially for those of us that work in small groups -or alone .
   I wonder if it would be possible to ask for a “privileged” access (in other words to bypass public -private status) to statistics data for Babelzilla and incorporate those statistics per locale in the WTS.
   That way we can “prioritize” translations for popular per locale add-ons.
   Another new feature of AMO is the ability to add localizers to add-ons. However, i haven’t tried that feature and i’m not sure if it provides any functionality other than credit. For example , if the localizer has enough privileges to add/edit localized descriptions etc and access to the statistics for an add-on it would certainly make it easier for the developer to handle the localization part and at the same time would provide helpful insight via the statistics per locale for the translator