Re: [Usability] Re: [Fwd: Re: Your final comments on gswitchit in 2.4...]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

I try not to crosspost, CC's removed.

On 24 Jun 2003, Christian Rose wrote:

> Date: 24 Jun 2003 13:58:14 +0200
> From: Christian Rose <menthos gnome org>
> To: Sergey V. Oudaltsov <sergey oudaltsov clients ie>
> Cc: gnome-i18n gnome org, usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Re: [Fwd: Re: Your final comments on gswitchit in
>     2.4...]

> The flags are an interesting issue. In general, I think we want to avoid
> showing flags in the GNOME UI for localization issues, at least by
> default. Flags are often politically and historically loaded stuff and
> can be offensive in some cases. Some countries share keyboard layouts

Irish people just love using the British Flag /endsarcasm

No need to throw out baby with the bathwater, there are better ways to
workaround cultural sensitivities than preventing people from using the
flag icons.  Rather than turn off flags completely it would be better to
have entries for both say an Irish and British even if the keyboard layout
is the same (in reality the keyboard layout is/should be different, but
this is just an example).

> As Sergey already pointed out, text descriptions are also what Windows
> uses, probably at least partially for this reason. On the other hand,
> MacOS IIRC shows flag symbols, but I think we can agree that not showing

I vaguely recall a shamrock being hacked in to Mac OS 8 or 9 for the
benifit of Irish users, I am fairly sure it was specific to the local
installation in Trinity College.

Having the text information there too is definately a good idea, text
labels scale better than flat pixmaps (and a well placed tooltip would be
good for general accessibility and helping users who dont recognise a
particular flag).

Sincerely
Alan Horkan