JEP-343: jpackage Windows installer localization

[Sverre Moe]

fre. 18. okt. 2019 kl. 01:17 skrev Alexey Semenyuk <
alexey.semenyuk at oracle.com>:

>
>
> On 10/17/2019 6:10 PM, Sverre Moe wrote:
>
> I wonder if there is something I can contribute with to improve the
> localization. Perhaps work further with the existing Localization that
> exists for WiX in jpackage.
>
> I made some changes to the jpackage localization, that I can contribute
> (mentioned in Change 1). The 2 other changes mentioned below require a
> little discussion before beginning to implement.
>
> *Change 1:* Add some missing localization for Strings on the installer
> information dialog for when folder already exists.
>   installer.folder.exists.dialog.title = Setup
>   installer.folder.exists.dialog.button.yes = Yes
>   installer.folder.exists.dialog.button.no = No
>
> These are the Dialog Strings defined strictly in jpackage template.wxs for
> the JpInvalidInstallDir dialog.
>
> I'm confused. Do you mean main.wxs? There is no template.wxs file in the
> sandbox, but there is main.wxs with JpInvalidInstallDir dialog.
>
> Yes, I meant the main.wxs. It defines a dialog for the invalid install dir
which has 4 Strings. Currently only one of these Strings has localization
in MsiInstallerStrings with jpackage, the three others are missing.

The Change 1 I proposed was to add the localization for these three missing
Strings to the existing
MsiInstallerString_en.wxl, MsiInstallerString_ja.wxl and
MsiInstallerString_zh_CN.wxl

The jpackage WiX template file is using the built-in WixUI_InstallDir
> dialog, and it has its own localization.
>
> https://wixtoolset.org//documentation/manual/v3/wixui/dialog_reference/wixui_installdir.html
>
> WiX has some support for localization. Perhaps extensive enough for most:
> en-us, hr-HR, lv-LV, ro-RO, uk-UA, ar-SA, es-es, hu-HU, ru-ru, zh-CN,
> bg-BG, et-EE, sk-SK, zh-HK, ca-ES, it-it, nb-NO, sl-SI, zh-TW, cs-CZ,
> fi-FI, ja-jp, nl-NL, sr-Latn-CS, da-DK, fr-fr, kk-KZ, pl-pl, sv-SE, de-de,
> he-IL, ko-KR, pt-BR, th-TH
>
> The culture switch must be provided to light.exe in order to use anything
> other than English.
> Use "-culture:nb-no" for the nb_NO localization.
>
> The cultures switch is not provided to light.exe by jpackage, and it is
> recommended by WiX.
> > The -loc flag is used to specify the language file to use. It is
> important to include the -cultures flag on the command line to ensure the
> correct localized strings are included for extensions such as
> WiXUIExtension.
>
> I have tested this by manually running light.exe and it works fine. I got
> the Norwegian localization for the installer when I specified
> "-culture:nb_NO".
>
> What type of localization you are looking for? MSI installers can be built
> with multilingual support. I.e. you can build an MSI package that would
> include English, Norwegian, German, etc. localizations and pick the one at
> installation time. But this is quite a complicated thing -
> https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/transforms/morphing-installers/.
> If you need only one language in your installer, then simple
> "-culture:nb_NO" would be sufficient, of course.
>
> I had a single language installer in mind yes. I think the
morphing-installers would be much more difficult to implement support for.
I think using the cultures switch with light.exe would suffice for jpackage
to support localization.

>
> *Change 2:* Add --win-culture, or --win-localization option to jpackage
> Provide the culture switch to light.exe as specified from the localization
> option.
> The second option is probably the best name. I would not even know what
> culture was about before looking into WiX, but everyone knows what
> localization means. The option approach would also allow users to run
> multiple executions of jpackage in order to build multiple installers in
> different languages.
>
> Adding --win-localization command line option looks reasonable. In case of
> missing .wxl file for requested localization in OpenJDK you would drop one
> in resource directory. Of course we need to fix jpackage to hook up .wxl
> files from resource directory. This functionality is missing at the moment.
>

> One caveat though: We need to support the same number of localizations in
> jpackage as WiX does. Otherwise if jpackage does not have its own
> localization for the specified culture switch, then building the installer
> will fail. It will fail for uknown localization variables on jpackage's own
> Strings.
> light.exe -culture:nb_NO MsiInstallerStrings_en.wxl
> error The localization variable !(loc.message.install.dir.exist) is
> unknown.
>
> There are many localization files in WiX, but luckily jpackage has only 4
> Strings of its own. It should not be that much work to make an
> MsiInstallerStrings file for each of the WiX localizations.
>
> I don't think we would support any localization beyond English, Japanese
> and Chinese Simplified in OpenJDK. Who would provide translations in
> multiple languages on regular basis?
>
> All these three localizations are in English, so what is the point then
with Japanese and Chinese?
Perhaps jpackage should just support English localization as default. and
the user would have to customize to get another localization.

There is pre-existing localization in WiX for most of the installer UI
created with jpackage, but the cultures switch must be provided to use them.
While testing with WiX Localization I found that these cannot be used
unless the localization file provided by jpackage has the same language.
WiX has Norwegian localization, among many other languages, while jpackage
does not.
This will fail light.exe with an error:
  -cultures:nb-no -loc MsiInstallerStrings_en.wxl
This will work though
  -cultures:nb-no -loc MsiInstallerStrings_nb_NO.wxl

This will also fail with Japanese and Chinese localization since they have
English en-us cultures set in their files.
  -cultures:ja -loc MsiInstallerStrings_ja.wxl
  -cultures:zh-cn -loc MsiInstallerStrings_zh_CN.wxl
So currently the Japanese and Chinese localization are useless as they are
both in English.

I found a way around this problem: The cultures switch support fallback
allowing the jpackage parts to remain in English, while the rest is
properly localized.
  -cultures:nb-no;en-us -loc MsiInstallerStrings_en.wxl

That way we can support the extensive localization support in WiX, while
the same time keep the localization support in jpackage to a minimum of
English, Japanese and Chinese Simplified.

>
> *Change 3:*
> All the WiX localization Strings can be overridden in the provided -loc
> MsiInstallerStrings.en.wxl file.
> We could support custom localization files in resource directory. It could
> allow users to provide localization which WiX does not have built-in
> support for, or just with different text for the existing localization
> Strings.
> > Using MsiInstallerStrings_en.wxl localization (specify
> application-name.wxl in resource-dir to customize)
>
> This is good idea.
>
> - Alexey
>