Close encounters of the Moz kind people

I am back from two very nice days for Barcelona Mozilla Europe Camp. Many thanks to Pascal, Paul, William and Delphine, to the nice people at the Citilab and all who contributed to this great meeting…
To put it short, it was great to see all these smart and geeky people hectic about what is next in Mozilla ecosystem, how to shape the future, how to make things better for the final user.
But my real surprise was not to see brilliant coders, team leaders, evangelists… sharing thoughts, concerns and vision, my real surprise was they were so open to discussion, ready to listen to what anyone had to say or propose, and even asking for feedback every now and then.
Let me give a personal example. During a session about MozDev by Brian King, I asked something about the install.rdf in extensions, in my hesitating and awkward English. Though my question was probably not very relevant and should have been asked to Axel Hecht, I was answered with great care, and Mark Finkle (who does not even know who I am of course) gave me his professional card so that I could remind my problem later on. I felt very honoured of course 🙂

Here are some shots of the nice people who were in Barcelona Mozilla Camp

On the background the great Chris Hofmann, Mozilla Engeneering Director, is taking the mike, while on the foreground a young wizz web designer is shaping the future, creating the GUID for a new funky Mozilla app (codename: moZebra). Hey this is the burning edge!

A great moment was when I met some folks I never had a chance to meet before in real life. First in the morning was Georges, aka Sonickydon, our Greek major contributor and a very kind person…

Sonickydon

Sonickydon

At last I met the incredible “lazy old man” Joooliiiaaaan ! Giuliano Masseroni, from Mozilla Italia, is The Man Who Had The Idea of BabelZilla and launched the project along with Jürgen. It was a pleasure to see him along with Simone (Underpass) and Francesco (Flod) from the Italian crew.

jooliaan and me

jooliaan and me


Hey he is much bigger than me, but I am a little older than he thought 😉

The Italian crew is also working at night at the Sal café, on the beach!

On the second day of the meeting, after various schedule changes, I delivered a little speech on BabelZilla during 20 minutes.

Here is the slideshow I used (Open Office presentation format) welcome2bz_19b
You can also browse my notes to get along with the slides and the online format (Google doc)

Now here is Pau Tomàs, a cool Catalan extension developer to whom I made some years ago the first locale support for his very handy gTranslate extension.

I really like his freaky look, I was probably just like that some 35 years ago :-P. Times are not a-changin’, kids!

Time for serious discussion between Tristan Nitot (Mozilla Europe prez) and Aza Raskin, the wizz guy who is developing Ubiquity.

Here we have Jan Odvarko (right) from Firebug development team. Please translators, remember Firebug needs your work , just join here on BZ 🙂!


Dozens of photos can be browsed here

Here are other image thumbnails to click, provided by Sonickydon 😉

(if you want to add images here, just give the link or send them as attachment)

Blogposts about the Mozilla Camp to be found on European Mozilla Community Blog, on William’s Blog, Tristan Nitot’s one, among others…

Posted in Extensions around the world | 3 Comments

WTS & Version Control

After a long time I have some news for the WTS.
The next WTS will have a version control system.

Because I know that you’re curious here are some screenshots from the new system:

Version Control on the WTS!

Version Control on the WTS!


Viewing Logs

Viewing Logs


Showing File Content using GesHi Syntax Highlighter

Showing File Content using GesHi Syntax Highlighter


"Blame": Viewing Who Did What

'Blame': Viewing Who Did What


Viewing File Diffs

Viewing File Diffs

Viewing More Diffs

Viewing More Diffs

Posted in Tech Room!, WTS (Web Translation System) | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Is localized software really ‘language’ compliant?

When users read ‘software localized’ they immediately realize that software messages are written in their own language but when developers read the same phrase they should immediately realize that software must fit specific languages rules and character sets.

The difference seems obvious but you can discover very strange behavior when applied to Mozilla platform.

Consider the cyrillic charset, Firefox is translated (ie localized) in Russian but when developers need to interact with underlying operative file system with file paths containing native language characters the life becomes tough.

Recently an user left a post on ViewSourceWith (VSW) extension forum about a bug with cyrillic file names, so I thought the problem was on VSW but after some test I realized the problem is related to Mozilla XPCOM implementation.

The UTF-8 format usage is sometime inconsistent under the hood expecially when must read, write or simply use file names containing non-ASCII characters.

I was very surprised to discover the APIs that run processes don’t work properly especially under the planet-most-used operating system Microsoft Windows.

There are many open bugs on bugzilla (172817, 409796, 408923) but nobody cares so I’ve decided to write myself a working (I hope) component for Microsoft Windows.

The lesson learned is: Localizing software is important but making software locale compliant is important too!

Do you agree?

Posted in Localization | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Is localized software really ‘language’ compliant?

Firebug extension needs more…

What is the Firebug extension?

It is a smart and powerful Web Development tool. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Sure it is mainly a geek-oriented tool 😉
Grab it on AMO -Learn more in documentation

Who is maintaining this extension?

Joe Hewitt was the original creator but it is a whole development team now! Just recently Jan Odvarko decided to manage the localization process relying on BabelZilla. He is very welcome :).

Localize it!

We remember  in the past the question of localizing Firebug was controversial, various coders, though being Chinese or Spanish,  prefer to have it in English, and surely very specific technical terms must definitely not be translated. But we believe that the overall interface messages should be delivered in the user language. It is free choice then for developers to switch to en-US only if they feel like doing it (Quick Locale Switcher extension is very quick and efficient to change your language). Note also that some developers would prefer to stick to en-US interface because of the poor quality of the translation for their language. This is clearly a challenge for BabelZilla translators!

Firebug on BabelZilla: translators required!

There are currently 32 localizations for Firebug on the WTS, but only part of them are ready-to-use and set to “released”.  Some translators are missing in action for a long time, others are too busy to update at the moment… hey we are volunteers after all!

But now we call old and new forces to join efforts :

  • If you are a former translator, already registered, and still willing to maintain your translation, please do your best to update within a decent delay. Keep on doing the good job! 🙂
  • If you are a registered translator but for whatever reason not wishing to maintain your translation, send a PM to an admin to let us know and try if possible to find someone to take over, in your language forum on BabelZilla or by whatever other means. Thanks a lot! 🙂
  • If you are new to BabelZilla and willing to start translation for your language, just register at the bottom of this page and do it!
Posted in Extensions around the world | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Firebug extension needs more…

A New Bird is born in Gecko’s Nest

After having initiated NVU, the very popular wysiwyg opensource html editor, Daniel Glazman is now releasing his new bird: BlueGriffon

It is a gecko engine propelled xulrunner. A quick look at the source code will tell you it is extensible just like other gecko-engined apps. Mr Glazman already conceived one Diavolo extension for his blazing new editor.

So we can expect one day to host some extensions to translate for this exciting new bird. 🙂

The logo is quite impressive, no doubt web designers will grab code fiercely with BlueGriffon claws!

logo for bluegriffon

logo for BlueGriffon (TM)

Posted in Extensions around the world | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on A New Bird is born in Gecko’s Nest

Fantastic Four! “My” Mozilla devel best friends

I love movies 😛 , therefore I’d like to write about a few scenes of movies I love and which inspired me!

Do you remember Marilyn Monroe when sang “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friends”?

Well, girls prefer diamonds but they don’t develop extensions for Mozilla products, or at least girls programming extensions aren’t so much (sob!!)

OK, now I’ll try to be “serious”: I love also Fantastic Four, probably not exactly the same who you love, but they are however special friends with who I’ve built solid friendship during the period of programming extensions (a long time)!

I know some extension developer losses much time to find information that can be easily (???) found using my best friends.

Who are these friends?

The first I encountered was DOM Inspector.

This one help me to dig inside DOM nodes for chrome (and normal pages!!) in a user friendly way, it simply speedup my XPCOM learning curve.

Many developers simply ignore DOM Inspector value; they should write thousand times on blackboard:

I will use DOM Inspector before ask to anyone
I will use DOM Inspector before ask to anyone

My second friend is Mozilla lxr, the source cross reference.

For many years I used “find in files” utilities to browse source code but now I have a hyperlinked way to find snippets of code.

Why lxr is so magic for me?

I can search source code and navigate using links to functions, variables, classes and any type of source code.

Try it and you will discover a new way to study source code for complex applications!

My friend (and I hope your) XUL planet is the well know APIs and tutorials site about XUL.

Nothing to say, writing extensions without xul planet is equivalent to drive a car in dark of the night without lights.

Last but not least: Bugzilla.

Have you never read “In case of emergency, break glass”?

Well in case of emergency Bugzilla is a valuable tool, you can search if someone has already encountered your problem and if it’s a bug or simply your mind is bugged ;-).

Honestly I don’t know how to really use Bugzilla, I’m unable to use the incredible powerful search engine but this is related to my stupidity 🙁 .

The Fantastic Four

Mr. Fantastic: lxr
Invisible Woman: DOM Inspector
The Thing: XUL planet
The Human Torch: Bugzilla

Who are your Mozilla devel best friends?

Tell me so they can became my new best friends 😉

Posted in Tech Room! | Comments Off on Fantastic Four! “My” Mozilla devel best friends

One Goofy Guy

As I don’t like to boast on my numerous qualities, I will spare you the long list of my programming skills. To make it short, just remember I was there to put the very first coakroach (improperly but now historically called a bug) in the huge Eniac machine, and that my early experiments on object-oriented programming language lead to the success of Apollo 13 mission. I also contributed to discover Rubik’s cube solution with a solid circular saw and superglue.

Now that I am getting old ( I was born in 1917) I have very few occasion to contribute to computer age programming, because there are millions of developers who don’t need me to generate crap codelines. Ah I remember my youth when I was spaghetti-coding with ZX 81 then Amstrad 512 ! At the time, there was nobody to tell you you were creating nonsense… we were NOT online, do you know ? But that’s enough with gone history.

My involvment on BabelZilla is mainly a question of friendship, as I already explained here (extraordinarily in a serious manner!), and it is based on a funny misunderstanding. The team here thought I could help, though I am practically unable to do one simple thing without making GoofyMistakes (TM). so I suspect they tell me to stay just because I am their buffoon, though it is even worse when I try to be funny.

For the moment, I am pleased with BabelZilla because translation is fun to me, and I like to share my experimental errors with the open source community, but I must say I am a little anxious on this point : as our site gets a big success (higher than expected one year ago), it becomes more and more serious, with more and more serious people all around making serious plans, that is why I prefer to stay here as a “loose cannon” – the French phrase is “électron libre” to suggest someone who may join or not, having individual erratic trajectory not necessarily circling around main core in a rational manner. Rationality sucks!

Jean-Bernard aka Goofy

Posted in The Team | Comments Off on One Goofy Guy

Kenji’s presentation

Young Japanese University student
I’m Kenji Inoue aka deq, 22 years old guy living in Osaka, Japan. I study at Osaka Institute of Technology majoring computer science (pursuing M.S.).

As a localization/translation assistant
My late activities focus on software localization, translation and documentation. Four years ago I co-founded a successful project called perldocjp which gathers and hosts Japanese translations of Perl-related documentations and, some days ago, June 12th, 2006, I just organized an event called Perl Transfest, where people got together and just translated documentations related Perl language. I contacted a person who is a contributor of OmegaT, an open-source translation memory tool, to make a speech to introduce a CAT (computer assisted translation) tool to the community. Using these CAT tools so far at experimental stage for developers and localizers but I hope they settle for us and improve actual efficiency of localization and translation. We, open-source software communities, always lack manpowers, aren’t we? We anyway need to solve them, sometimes by technology, and I would like to support it.

Typical history of an average programmer

Ah, being a WTS developer, I ought to have to explain my programming skills. I love programming since I was nine or ten. Like an average computer nerd, at that age I loved to write recursive functions in Basic where the old school goto statement governed, the world before Dijkstra lit up. As a typical Internet kid, after I just entered into a high school, reading RFCs and reverse engineering softwares I loved to write IRC bots in Perl to protect our IRC channels fighting against Eastern Europe or Middle East teenagers. And, yes, I haven’t made anything really important to show you to flatter myself, like an ordinary Slashdot user. Uhmmm, well, at least I am proofed that I’m smart enough to create a half-borrowed-from-other-extension-source-codes extension called PageZoom and that’s all.

Guitars
My sole hobby (except computer and programming, of course) is to play acoustic guitar solo. It contains dynamics, statics, passion, hope, happiness, sadness and every little thing whole in one instrument. I’m just knocked over.

Kenji

Posted in WTS (Web Translation System) | Comments Off on Kenji’s presentation

A Life for programming, and now new WTS Dev!

A Life for programming

My name is Davide aka dafi, I live in South Italy, I’m a 36 years old and I can’t imagine my life without programming!
I program anything, washing machines, videorecorders and … computers.
At ten years old I had my first computer the Sinclair ZX80 with one kilobyte of RAM!!
I had been so stupid to sell it to buy a Commodore 64.
I was falling in love for Commodore Amiga and I loved to program using assembly on Motorola 68000 series processors.
I’m an open source evangelist and my idol is Richard Stallman. Now I work as senior Java programmer and technical coordinator, and I’m also a volunteer at Mozilla Foundation as extension reviewer.
I’ve discovered BabelZilla project and I’m currently sharing my works with BZ team as new WTS Developer.

Spending free time

Mainly I pass my free time to learn new programming languages and share my little know-how with other people.
I love books and movies; my preferred books are Being Digital and Flatland, my preferred movies are Bladerunner and Tron and obviously Matrix 1.
And last but not least, I’m waiting for the woman of my life! She is a bit in later but I can wait some other time.

Davide

Posted in WTS (Web Translation System) | Comments Off on A Life for programming, and now new WTS Dev!

A new WTS Developer-> Denis (myself)

Just a first introduction about myself

My name is Denis aka denistn, I’m an Italian guy (26 years old) and more than 10 years ago I found out that software development was my best hobby: so I’ve decided to transform it to my job and actually I succeeded. It is very nice to get paid to do something you really like to do, isnt’it?

Few weeks ago, I moved to Coté d’Azur (France) and now I’m working as Software Development Engineer in a big company. Besides this, I like very much to work on open-source projects, to share knowledge with others and to stay tuned about what’s happening in the IT world.

In my spare time!

In the spare time, I’ve developed the PDF Download extension for Firefox and I want to keep improving it as much as I can.

From now on, I will also contribute to improve BabelZilla as new WTS Developer: of course I hope to do a good job, but in any case I will do my best.

My life, my love

Is there anything else? Yes, of course! I’m engaged with my girlfriend Laura and we are now living together (finally): what is there better than sharing my entire life with my girlfriend? NOTHING: this is the most important thing, IMHO the rest is only a decoration!

Denis

Posted in WTS (Web Translation System) | Comments Off on A new WTS Developer-> Denis (myself)