Please note some of the information provided in this report may be subject to change as we are sometimes sharing information about projects that are still in early stages and are not final yet.
Welcome!
What’s new or coming up in Firefox desktop
Firefox Backup
Firefox backup is a new feature being introduced in Firefox 145, currently testable in Beta and Nightly behind a preference flag. See here for instructions on how to test this feature.
This feature allows users to save a backup of their Firefox data to their local device at regular intervals, and later use that backup to restore their browser data or migrate their browser to a new device. One of the use cases is for current Windows 10 users who may be migrating to a new Windows 11 device. The user can save their Firefox backup to OneDrive, and later after setting up their new device can then install Firefox and restore their browsing data from the backup saved in OneDrive.
This is an alternative to using the sync functionality in combination with a Mozilla account.
Settings Redesign
Coming up in future releases, the current settings menu is being re-organized and re-designed to be more user friendly and easier to understand. New strings will be rolling out with relative frequency, but they can’t be viewed or tested in Beta or Nightly yet. If you encounter anything where you need additional context, please feel free to use the request context button in Pontoon or drop into our localization matrix channel where you can get the latest updates and engage with your fellow localizers from around the world.
What’s new or coming up in mobile
Here’s what’s been going on in Firefox for Android land lately: you may have noticed strings landing for the Toolbar refresh, the tab tray layout, as well as for a homepage revamp. All of this is work is ongoing, so expect to see more strings landing soon!
On the Firefox for iOS side, there have been improvements to Search along with a revamp of the menu and tab tray. Ongoing work continues on the Translations feature integration, the homepage revamp, and the toolbar refresh.
More updates coming soon — stay tuned!
What’s new or coming up in web projects
AMO and AMO Frontend
The team has been working on identifying and removing obsolete strings to minimize unnecessary translation effort especially the locales that are still catching on. Recently they removed an additional 160 or so strings.
To remain in production, a locale must have both projects at or above 80% completion. If only one project meets the threshold, neither will be enabled. This policy helps prevent users from unintentionally switching between their preferred language and English. Please review your locale to confirm both projects are localized and in good standing.
If a locale already in production falls below the threshold, the team will be notified. Each month, they will review the status of all locales and manually add or remove them from production as needed.
Mozilla accounts
The Mozilla accounts team has been working on the ability to customize surfaces for the various projects that rely on Mozilla accounts for account management such as sync, Mozilla VPN, and others. This customization applies only to a predetermined set of pages (such as sign-in, authentication, etc.) and emails (sign-up confirmation, sign-in verification code, etc.) and is managed through a content management system. This CMS process bypasses the typical build process and as a result changes are shown in production within a very short time-frame (within minutes). Each customization requires an instance of a string, even if that value hasn’t changed, so this can result in a large number of identical strings being created.
This project will be managed in a new “Mozilla accounts CMS” project within Pontoon instead of the main “Mozilla accounts” project. We are doing this for a couple reasons:
- To reduce or eliminate the need to translate duplicate strings: In most cases it’s best to have different strings to allow for translation adjustments depending on context, however due to the nature of this project, identical strings for the same page element (e.g. “button”) will use a single translation. For example, all buttons with the text “Sign in” will only require a single translation. This has reduced the number of strings requiring translation by over 50% already, and will reduce the number of additional strings in the future.
- To enable pretranslation: Important note – this only applies to locales that have opted-in to the pretranslation feature. Due to the CMS string process skipping the normal build cycle and being exposed to production near instantaneously, there’s a high likelihood that untranslated strings may be shown in English before teams have the chance to translate. If a locale has opted in for pretranslation, then the “Mozilla accounts CMS” project will have pretranslation enabled by default and show pretranslated strings until the team has a chance to review and update strings. If your locale has decided not to use the pretranslation feature, then nothing will change and translated strings will be displayed once your team has them translated and approved in Pontoon.
Newly published localizer facing documentation
We’ve recently updated our testing instructions for Firefox for Android and for Firefox for iOS! If you spot anything that could be improved, please file an issue — we’d love your feedback.
Friends of the Lion
Image by Elio Qoshi
- We’ve started a new blog series spotlighting amazing contributors from Mozilla’s localization community. The first one features Selim of the Turkish community.
- A second localizer spotlight was published! This time, meet Bogo, a long-time contributor to Bulgarian projects.
Want to learn more from your fellow contributors? Who would you like to be featured? You are invited to nominate the next candidate!
Know someone in your l10n community who’s been doing a great job and should appear here? Contact us and we’ll make sure they get a shout-out!
Questions? Want to get involved?
If you want to get involved, or have any question about l10n, reach out to:
- Francesco Lodolo (flod) – Engineering Manager
- Bryan – L10n Project Manager
- Delphine – L10n Project Manager for mobile
- Peiying (CocoMo) – L10n Project Manager for mozilla.org, marketing, and legal
- Francis – L10n Project Manager for Common Voice, Mozilla Foundation
- Théo Chevalier – L10n Project Manager for Mozilla Foundation
- Kiki – L10n Project Manager for SUMO
- Matjaž (mathjazz) – Pontoon dev
- Eemeli – Pontoon, Fluent dev
Did you enjoy reading this report? Let us know how we can improve it.
No comments yet
Post a comment