Firefox 3.0.x's rendering is very bad and it is
almost impossible to work in localize environment with
firefox.

When Firefox downloaded and used in Punjabi language (pa_IN)
locale (environment), English web pages are showing characters
in Punjabi (Non-English) font. (Juck characters as in screenshot)

Blog Screenshot

And yes, it is problem on Linux, but not confirmed on Windows.

it is almost impossible to read the Text on most website. Wonder
is that Punjabi Websites works fine.

Firefox Rendering Problem

First bug was filed for Fedora Bugz #460865, which is later
upstreamed to Mozilla

Mozilla Bz #455647 is handle very quickly and fixed
bug for trunk (firefox 3.1/1.9.1), but Firefox 3.0.3/4/5/6/x
is still without patch. If patch is not
available, then Fedora 10, Opensuse 11.0/11.1 will suffer
and native user will actually suffer from it.

Can someone from Mozilla or Indic community will ask
Mozilla l10n to make commet in Bug (or make blocker
for 1.9.0.5/6)?
It is really difficult for regular Indic user to work
with firefox (3.0.x) without patch?

Unicode make it clear that 'pa-gur-IN' is basic part of 'pa' locale

where pa-gur-IN Represent as < LANG >-< SCRIPT >-< REGION >
so Punjabi-Gurmukhi-India Script is actually making 'pa' locale.

So Most Project already using 'pa' is for Punjabi, quite few project
like mozilla is using pa-IN, which need to update.

A bug 380287 filed for Firefox/Thunderbird
updates.

I tried to file before Firefox 3 Release and asked to fix it, but
Mozilla Team was busy with other important task, so it was skipped.
Finally Team have a time and get back to it.

Unicode: http://www.unicode.org/cldr/bugs/locale-bugs?findid=1300
---------------------------------------------------------------------
pa (Stage 1) //Punjabi =
pa-IN (default)(unicode bug _above)
/ \
/ \
pa-arb pa-gur (Stage 2) //2 different Script
(Shahmukhi / Gurmukhi)
| |
pa-PK pa-IN (Stage 3)//Region based,
Pakistan India
---------------------------------------------------------------------

So, Now First we need to skip region based choice and to
original locale choice (that is 'pa'), which is important
as if you run a application, by giving pa-IN or pa-PK, and
no translation available for that, then application will check
for 'pa' translation. As 'pa' is default, so we need to use it
(as Unicode confirmed this).

What happened if Shahmukhi Script people want to start project
for Punjabi?
Surely they have to use script encoding with language like pa-arb
or pa@arb as there is script difference and only solution is to use
arb with pa and it is true for all projects. After all script is basic
difference, not region as any Shahmukhi Punjabi User can be
anywhere is world as Gurmukh Punjabi Script User are.

I got most response from NRI Punjabi people instead of India based.
so it is not good to attach a specific region with locale due to
population (census). I was never happy to divide a language
on basis of region, as Language has no boundary itself, but it
flow of ideas, freedom to express those, So we should make it
open and out of boundary. If I have operating system, then sometimes
it can be used to select timezone for locale automatic, but should
not be forced to use only that timezone. My Mac is showing
same issue as I selected Punjabi, then only Showing region as
India. Surely more Punjabi Mac users are outside India and
Apple is still confuse with "non-census" data. So
making my (our) locale region-free is important mission for me.

During working on bug, something interesting is pointed out that
mozilla got around 100 hits daily for Punjabi locale. It was
quite good figure, if I cared to my guess.

Hope to fix this issue soon as 'Seth' is working quite hard, but
I was worrying about his late comment in bug "will ask our Indic localizers
who write blogs to make the announcement."

let us see what is output of that...

Again Firefox available for Testing beta version. It is available
for Punjabi Version 3.1Beta1

Windows Download:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.1b1&os=win&lang=pa-IN

Mac Download:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.1b1&os=osx&lang=pa-IN

Linux Download:
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.1b1&os=linux&lang=pa-IN

If you have resource please download and Test once (for Punjabi), so
that we can make impact for locale [1]

More This Beta release Information:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

After Test, please send us your review, comment about
Translation to our mailing list Punjab-users so that
we can work to update as we have two week to finish before
Beta 2 release. I have one issue with me (which is sent by
Mr. A S Kang for copy/link issue)

[1] Mozilla Bug
ਬੱਗ ਮੁਤਾਬਕ ਔਸਤ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਲਈ ਹਿੱਟ 100 ਰੋਜ਼ਾਨਾ ਹੈ, ਮੈਨੂੰ ਥੋੜ੍ਹੀ ਹੈਰਾਨੀ ਹੋਈ ਕਿ 100 ਕਿੱਥੋ ਹੋ ਗਏ, ਸੱਚੀ
ਐਨੀ ਉਮੀਦ ਨਹੀਂ ਸੀ। ਬਾਕੀ ਮੋਜ਼ੀਲਾ ਸਿਸਟਮ ਐਡਮਿਨ ਦੇ ਸ਼ਬਦ ਖੁਦ ਪੜ੍ਹ ਲਵੋ ਜੀ! Check
Admin comment below about Punjabi

"For the most part it looks like we have about 100 Active Daily users for pa-IN.
There is a strange couple of days just recently where we had a huge spike.
aug 21,22... Can anyone think of what might have caused this? Holiday or any
other event? I could have just been an error in our reporting system...

Here is the data for those two days and the last 15.

2008-08-21 7,004
2008-08-22 533
...
2008-10-01 110
2008-10-02 94
2008-10-03 115
2008-10-04 99
2008-10-05 93
2008-10-06 107
2008-10-07 106
2008-10-08 114
2008-10-09 96
2008-10-10 119
2008-10-11 99
2008-10-12 102
2008-10-13 117
2008-10-14 113
2008-10-15 119"

I was working to fix translation status for mozilla firefox release.
After commit some files, I need to find what is changeset, which
I forgot to get with following command before 'hg push':

$ hg outgoing

this command give you output as changeset.

After small search I found new command as below:

$ hg log

This command give you complete log, from start date and first
few line will be latest log as below:
------
singh-brars-macbook:pa-IN Preet$ hg log
changeset: 9:c712d30e06bb
tag: tip
user: A S Alam
date: Tue Sep 30 20:20:34 2008 +0530
summary: Update for Beta Release with add/remove lines, files for Punjabi (pa): A S Alam

changeset: 8:ad8705b0d648
user: A S Alam
date: Tue Sep 30 20:18:16 2008 +0530
summary: Update for Beta Release with add/remove lines, files for Punjabi (pa): A S Alam
------

this was useful to get latest changes commit to directory

This was first time, when I got chance to work
with Windows Vista. My Friend Felix Brought
his Dell Inspration 1420 with Windows Vista
(pre-installed).
He was trying to install Fedora with Vista, but
when Installed fedora, it was installed Boot loader
(GRUB) in MBR, Windows was selected by default (which
is expected), but when it is selected ("Other") from
Grub, Vista Failed to Boot.
Again he installed Windows Vista without removing
Linux,It worked for Windows Vista (as it replace
MBR).
Now during searching for Windows Vista + Grub,
we found that there is Software "EasyBCD", which
can install Linux/Mac Boot-loader to Windows Boot
Manger.
Installed, configured as mentioned, but Failed.
now 'Windows Boot Manger' failed to Boot Linux,
showing some technical Error.

wasted lot of time to find solution. It was not common
issue, because I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 on Rajesh's
Machine, which also had Windows Vista.

Final continue with Searching for solution, I found
something regarding BIOS Setting. Oh, yes, how
I forgot this.
it brought Signal Green to mind. SATA is making problem??

Dell provide SATA as AHCI mode default in BIOS, which
was necessary for New "Flash" feature. I have never
heard about this. by Disabling, when install fedora,
it was again showing error.
Chain loader failed work again. Try to check what was
error, it was showing error "No Loader Found"
why? at Grub, pressed 'e', it showing

----------
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,1)
----------
why (hd0,1), when Vista has separte Boot partition on
/dev/sda1 (Other than where it is install, not 'C').
Yes, this was strange, but it is true now.
when used following line instead,

chainloader (hd0,0)

it worked, yes, it worked. and I enjoyed very
much to fix this issue. This was today full
day research.

will try to search whether that "AHCI" and "ATA"
mode change helped to fix this or not.

waiting from last few weeks to update few translated files, those have errors and I know that:-)

gnome-power-manager - > last time I did a lot of translation for this and 2 translation Errors were there, I got those, but was in hurry so committed as it is. Finally It is over, but need to find fine editor on Mac. Poedit, LocFactory Editor not work as I was not expert with those, finally KDE4 installatin helped me and lokalize Make it possible.


kde4 - plasma's translation was really un-understandable, and just today I got on my newly laptop, that line is first to see:-(
that line hit me and I started work to remove Error.

so, finally committed changes and gnome/kde desktop for Punjabi is more good than before.

I was trying mozilla l10n commit with new version control system, Mercurial.
Finally today I cheched out en-US and pa-IN (for checkout, please check Docs),
started with few translation for one file and used step as mention in Mozilla Docs
following is output of my terminal
------
amanpreet:pa-IN Preet$ hg commit -m "updating translation first time with hg for Punjabi (pa) by Amanpreet Singh Alam"
amanpreet:pa-IN Preet$ hg outgoing
comparing with ssh://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/pa-IN/
searching for changes
changeset: 2:0c8a3c71fe9d
tag: tip
user: A S Alam
date: Tue Aug 12 11:47:59 2008 +0530
summary: updating translation first time with hg for Punjabi (pa) by Amanpreet Singh Alam

amanpreet:pa-IN Preet$ hg push
pushing to ssh://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/pa-IN/
searching for changes
remote: adding changesets
remote: adding manifests
remote: adding file changes
remote: added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
amanpreet:pa-IN Preet$ hg push
pushing to ssh://hg.mozilla.org/l10n-central/pa-IN/
searching for changes
no changes found
---------

first 'hg push' is so slient that I can't understand that anything commited or not, so I run once again
and tried to fresh checkout and Yes, changes are there. So Please don't except any version for new files
as in CVS.

So, finally log can be check Mozilla-l10n-central

First Punjabi hg commit "Push" can be found at
First Punjabi Commit Log.

I was trying with hg (hg is a distributed
version control ) for my Firefox translation Project. Python was installed previously on macBook
(Mac OS X 10.5.4), but while running hg command, it showed error like following:
-----------
amanpreet-singh-brars-macbook:~ Preet$ hg ****
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/hg", line 18, in
mercurial.util.set_binary(fp)
File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/mercurial/demandimport.py", line 74, in __getattribute__
self._load()
File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/mercurial/demandimport.py", line 46, in _load
mod = _origimport(head, globals, locals)
File "/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages/mercurial/util.py", line 33, in
_encoding = locale.getlocale()[1]
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/locale.py", line 460, in getlocale
return _parse_localename(localename)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/locale.py", line 373, in _parse_localename
raise ValueError, 'unknown locale: %s' % localename
ValueError: unknown locale: UTF-8
---------
last line was making some know hint, something wrong with locale setting.

Tried to set various setting from terminal, finally it is fixed and here are commands I used

-----
$ printenv LANG

$ export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

$ export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
-----
if you want those changes each time you log-in then make ~/.bashrc file and add
those lines there.

Note: I have not reboot my machine after making those changes, please don't know
whether work or not;-)