I’d like to submit flag images for en-IL. How should I submit them?

Translating to Hebrew would probably entail redesigning the pages, since it goes from right to left, so I’ll leave that for some other time.

Josh,

Is English an official language for Israël ?

Including flags for all countries is only a matter of resizing images. But I really would like to fdo this only for real locales with translation. Anyone can easily add his own flag without translation if he wants to.

If you do make a translation to Hebrew, be assured we will work with you to make the app work with RTL display.

-François.

Hi François,

English isn’t an official language for Israel, only Hebrew and Arabic are. The reason I’d like the Israeli flag (and all other country flags) to be part of the distro is so that:

1) The flag will display properly when linked by other sites. For instance, when I have a post from my blog cited on the b2evolution page, I get the ubiquitous question-mark flag.

2) Other people from these countries can start posting out of the box, without having to make their own flags.

Even if I could make a Hebrew translation file, I’d still do my blog in English, since most of my readers don’t speak Hebrew. But I still want an Israeli flag showing up because I’m posting from Israel and not, e.g., the EU.

Does this make sense?

- Josh

Josh,

I see your point, but the flags here are only a – admitedly poor – representation of the language/locale of the blog, not it’s country of origin.

I do not plan to add locales named en_XX for all the countries of the world, en_IL being one of them. This would definitely not make sense. I personnaly blog in French and in English but still haven’t created a phony en_FR locale ;)

However, I should probably add a locale for international English, but could not decide on any flag/logo for this, so it’s still defaulting to ‘?’ so far…

(You could argue that en_EU is a bit ahead of its time, but I seriously hope Europe will settle on English as a primary language soon because it’s just impossible to do otherwise ;)

Any suggestions for picturing internaltional English? And for a non standard locale name? en_I ? en_INT ?

It seems like there are two components here - language and country. Do we distinguish between American English and British English because they are distinct dialects? But if so, what kind of dialect is EU English or International English? I don’t think I follow why the official language criterion should make the difference. (Btw, English is not an official language in Israel, but all the street signs are in English, Hebrew and Arabic, so it’s all but official.)

I think when you see a flag next to a post you assume that the post was written by a citizen of that country, which is probably why there is an EU flag. So maybe these two things should be separated.

As it stands now, adding flags for all countries to the image folder shouldn’t be controversial, and that would solve the question-mark flag problem.

I’d be glad to discuss this with you further.

- Josh

Yes American and British English are different.

Btw, English is not an official language in Israel, but all the street signs are in English, Hebrew and Arabic, so it’s all but official.

That makes it “official” to me! :) Enough anyway to add en_IL as a locale! :) Sorry for using the term “official” abusively :)

I think when you see a flag next to a post you assume that the post was written by a citizen of that country, which is probably why there is an EU flag. So maybe these two things should be separated.

I am not going to argue here. Flags are a poor way of representing locales. I have said it already. But 80% of the people like the flags, so we do it for them on the site. Period.
There is nothing that forces you to use those on your own site. (you can still try to find another way to picture languages or locales… :P)

As it stands now, adding flags for all countries to the image folder shouldn’t be controversial, and that would solve the question-mark flag problem.

It’s not an issue about pictures but about locales. The pictures are useless until there is a locale to reference them. And again, Yes, adding 250 additional phony locales for en_XX is controversial.

I see your point about having to add all those fake locales. I still think that those 80% of people who want flags, want them to represent who they are, not which language their blog is in. Would a Japanese writing to an English-speaking audience want an American flag next to his post or a Japanese flag?

Anyways, changing this policy would probably require a bit of a redesign, even if we agreed on that point, so for now should I send you the en_IL locale? How do I do that?

Best,
Josh

Josh, you do not seem to understand: the flags in b2evolution are used the same way websites have flags to go to the English version or any other translated version. All those sites do use an US or an UK flag for the English version, even if the site is in another country.

Accept that those 80% think different from you and me. Yes there are hundreds of people posting with american flags all over the world and they’re happy about it.

I personally don’t like the flag analogy that much either. It is confusing indeed.

Anyway, you can send me the locale details by email.

For those of you updating directly on the CVS ( Ronh! ;) ), please make sure that you work on the “v-0-9″ stable branch and not on the main development branch.

Who? Me? I don’t know anything .. :P :P

I’ll send it asap!

The new look is . . . new. Reckon I’ll be okay with it, but I sort of liked the blue buttons.

On the flag issue, how about (if it’s not already done) writing a HowTo for people to create their own “locally flagged English"? Basically it’s the flag source, dimension requirements, folders to upload to, and naming conventions, then the actual locale creation. That way anyone wanting their own can change their flag without having an actual translation.

Have fun!

EdB,

Don’t worry, the blue buttons won’t be gone. We have a style switcher in there :)

Here’s the flags howto man page! :)

-F.

Francois, I really did understand the point about the locale, I just think most people would rather have the flag represent nationality and not locale. That would really be a new and separate feature, so it’s good that people can fake it by following your flags howto page.

i agree with Josh. a blog may be in Chinese but that person may be in US, UK or anywhere else in the world. A flag is supposed to represent where a person is and not the language he posts in. I am having a big problem trying to resolve what bilingual blogs.:S

François,

I vote for en_INT for International English and rainbow flag, like the rainbow-shirt in cycling.

Cheers,
Rick

The flags should stay for language an not locale. I like being able to see a flag to know what language something is in before I waste the bandwidth loading a page in a language I can’t read.

I understand wanting the flags for you can let people know what country your in, but knowing what language your post is in is more important.

hello PLANQUE:

When i changed to the locale “Traditional Chinese” (zh_TW), it seems not work. :(
So i trace /locales/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/message.po
then i think it’s not the right virsion for b2 evolution 0.9.0.10
though, now a day, i translate a message.po file for zh_TW here
http://s89.tku.edu.tw/~489192251/messages.zip

if u need, feel free to use it!

Thanks for your contribution Jimmy, I am adding your file to CVS. :D

i would like to try to translat if there is no translation for the hebrew language…but i dont know where do i need to do the changes…. soo….if you can tell me how to do it i will try…10x