JEP-343: jpackage Windows installer localization

Fri Oct 18 14:55:33 UTC 2019

On 10/18/2019 4:41 AM, Sverre Moe wrote:
> fre. 18. okt. 2019 kl. 01:17 skrev Alexey Semenyuk 
> <alexey.semenyuk at oracle.com <mailto: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
>>     <http://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
Sounds good.
You can create a ticket in Jira (You can use 
https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8230668 as a template for your 
ticket), send review request to this mail alias and your path will be 
integrated after review.
Details on submitting code reviews - 
https://openjdk.java.net/guide/codeReview.html

>
>>     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.
Agreed.

>>
>>     *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?
jpackage is not a part of OpenJDK yet, once this will be the case, we 
will have proper localization of that stub files.

> Perhaps jpackage should just support English localization as default. 
> and the user would have to customize to get another localization.
jpackage should support all localizations that OpenJDK supports.

>
> 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
Ok, so in jpackage we are missing:
1. Logic to pick up .wxl files from resource dir and use them with 
light.exe.
2. Option to specify value of -cultures light.exe option.

>
> 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.
Oh, en-us cultures set in MsiInstallerStrings_ja.wxl and in 
MsiInstallerStrings_zh_CN.wxl is a bug. Thank you for the catch!

>
> 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.
Good to know, thank you!

I've created https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8232621 to capture 
all l10n related issues of msi installers.

- Alexey

>>
>>     *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
>