Language Menu in User Options
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To be honest it's not a life threatening issue but if this landed on my desk like this I'd block the release. I would print out the all accompanying documentation, I hope they updated the manual too. And go smack the responsible for it over his head with the stack of paper.
I'll just 'happen' to pass on by the management floor and make he joke about it to the CIO. Most likely he'll ask me to hand over the stack of papers because he thinks my back hand lacks a punch.So now that this is said. Would it be at all possible to get some descriptive names in this drop down?
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I would hope that chinese people already knew to look for ZH, but whatever; that (full language names) is probably a good idea.
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Sorry you'll still get a whack. It's not there is an international code for it that it is user friendly to use those codes. Is there something wrong with using complete names?
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Probably there should be little flags, not even words. PR would be accepted in this area!
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How do you order the flags? For English do I have to look for a USA flag instead of the one for my country? (similar question for Spanish speaking countries) I think flags are a silly idea with more than about 8 to choose from
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little flags
I consider that to be even worse.
I don't follow your assumption that language and country are aligned. That is a very, very american assumption.
Dutch will then the flag of the Netherlands + Belgium Flag. And Français (the language) gets the French + Belgium flags. Did you have a look at those flags. That is utterly confusing. The French and Dutch flag only differentiate in direction. As a French/Dutch speaker you're sure to choose the wrong thing first.
Or are you going to offend nationalities by only imposing the Dutch or French flag for those languages? And how far does one go in this? For German we'll add Austria and Switzerland. But German is also an official language in Belgium and is even used in Luxembourg. Will we just omit these because they are minorities? Or will
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How do you order the flags?
By RGB of course! Of the average of all pixels perhaps.
Or by starting at the top left pixel and going right, then onto the second row until you can differentiate two flags.
Except the UAE flag and a few others, For those flags you'll need to start at the top right pixel and go left, then down.
Oh - then there's Korean and the Kanji languages - Top left down, then right for those flags.
Just be grateful boustrophedon isn''t a thing these days.
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Agreed.
The whole ordering thing has several flow-on issues, the most important of which is usability. If there's a dropdown list, users expect to be able to hit at least one letter and jump to the relevant values (if not typing out most of the word they expect). That can't be done if you use images as the items.Language selection (when there's been more than a handful of options) is a problem that has been solved many a time, and typically in a consistent and expected way. No need to reinvent the wheel just because you want to look pretty.
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If you want to make it look pretty add the flags but not only the flags and no abbreviations. If you add the flag of the Netherlands to the word Dutch or Nederlands then as a Belgian I'm not offended but if you only show the flag then it is like you are asking me to select my country and I'm below that border thank you very much.
The hole thing stinks of 90ties areas website where you where required to select a US state even if you selected a different country then US.
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Dude, that's not an American assumption, it's a jeffism.
You should show languages by their full name in their own language, and let the computer figure out the proper sort order.
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what we need is a whole new set of flags. Flags that represent languages rather than countries.
they we can display those flags without giving anyone offence! right?
right?
oh, not right?
:-(
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Why even have a language selection? Discourse should poll the user's location every few seconds, and run analytics on what the user has typed to automatically determine what language it should change to. </jeff>
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Lorem ipsum
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Autodetected language: error 503
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Discourse would like to determine and misinterpret your location. Allow?
Yes, DiscNo
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Why even have a language selection? Discourse should poll the user's location every few seconds, and run analytics on what the user has typed to automatically determine what language it should change to. </jeff>
And it should do it based on geolocation, of course.
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And if that's disabled, via IP?
How else does one do geolocation?!
But yes, build a big-ass list of IP addresses and ranges for languages.
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By using your phone's GPS sensor?
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so if i take a vacation in japan the site switches to Japanese even though i don't speak it?
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so if i take a vacation in japan the site switches to Japanese even though i don't speak it?
Yes, yes, that's the idea. You're getting the hang of our interpretation of Discologic.
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What if you're on a desktop?
open a Bluetooth connection, find the nearest phone, connect and query its GPS. If you don't have Bluetooth you're Doing It Wrong and will get a cryptic error message
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Sounds like something Discourse should do.
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If there's no way to determine your location, apply heuristics. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language, so use Korean because they're basically the same, probably. They both use funny symbols at least
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You should show languages by their full name in their own language, and let the computer figure out the proper sort order.
You mean like reddit (and probably everyone else) does? That's crazy talk.
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How is Jeff expected to develop for the next ten years if he's always using existing wheels? We need a reinvented wheel of the future!
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Mandarin is the most widely spoken language, so use Korean because they're basically the same, probably.
I like the way you're thinking, but English is the most spoken. It borrowed a lot from French, but so many of our words have Greek roots that the safest thing is to default to Spanish, because that's what we'll all be using in the US in a few decades.
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We need a reinvented wheel of the future!
As long as it isn't a wheel for a pickup, of course.
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It's obviously not settled which is the most common language. Lets make it scrape Wikipedia to find out and go from there
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Probably there should be little flags, not even words. PR would be accepted in this area!
Serious suggestion: Why not full language names (in the target language)
with the flags you are suggesting? That would probably be the most user friendly.Edit: modified after further reading and consideration.
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Matches:
You should show languages by their full name in their own language, and let the computer figure out the proper sort order.
You mean like reddit (and probably everyone else) does? That's crazy talk.You are Doing it Wrong™. That would be totally against discologic.
Use flag, ordered by the number of average cats / living human being in each country.
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Serious suggestion: Why not full language names (in the target language)
with the flags you are suggesting?That would probably be the most user friendly.
ETFYas @luhmann has pointed out nationality based flags is a great way to offend people. best to stick with the name of the language (in the target language)
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as @luhmann has pointed out nationality based flags is a great way to offend people. best to stick with the name of the language (in the target language)
I wouldn't bother with the flags. Language names are descriptive enough. If necessary add a locale as secondary indication. If for example you would have both en-UK & en-US then use English (UK) and English (US).
Flags will just be confusing. Will you use :uk: or for English or both? If you use both what order will they be in? Alphabetically? Fine, but for Français that would mean that the Belgian flag will be in front the French flag. But don't forget Switzerland. Will you add the Canadian Flag to Français? Or Luxembourg?
Small flags can also be confusing. The flags of the Netherlands and France are identical in colors, so are the Belgian and German flags. There are flags like Spain with symbols on it that on a tiny size become rather silly.
Flags are loaded symbols, they are not neutral. It has a certain political and cultural meaning that is not always the same for everybody. There are Belgian First War Veterans who refused to wear their decorations and be berried with the honor the deserved because for them that flag was as evil as the German one. In their thinking it was the French/Walloon Belgian state that was as much responsible for the deaths of their friends as where the German bullets.
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Why not full language names (in the target language) with the flags you are suggesting? That would probably be the most user friendly.
Sounds like you answered your own question there.
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Sounds like you answered your own question there.
Yes, but after further reading, I think the flag idea should just be dropped. Just do this part:
Why not full language names (in the target language)
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Why not lojban?
It's a good default because >99% of all people have the same amount of understanding.
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Why not @Zoidberg?
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Young lady, I am an expert on humans. Now pick a mouth, open it and say "brglgrglgrrr"!
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Why not lojban?
Now I'm kinda glad that they ignore the stuff @ben_lubar has submitted.
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ordered by the number of average cats / living human being in each country
Sub sorted by whether or not the cats are meant for eating or not?
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Flags will just be confusing. Will you use or for English or both?
It's quite common now to see a combination of both flags like this
I don't really like it, but it's quite common
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They're missing Australia.
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Yup, and many other countries.
The main players are (i.e. Countries where English is the de facto language)
Australia
Bahamas
Canada
New Zealand
United Kingdom
United States
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If your name is Ray Cist, give us a call!
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If your name is Ray Cist, give us a call!
Would you mind sharing your phone number?
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Of course, it's 01626 831290. If you're dialling from some weird foreign place you'll need to drop the leading zero and add some sort of international prefix for the UK. As @PJH pointed out, it's very fucking complicated.