Untranslated titles shown in mate-control-center

What version of Ubuntu MATE are you reporting this against?

(I have opened a bug which has been marked as duplicate of this one. Not sure I need to add info there but just in case...)

In my case, the problem appeared in Mate 1.12, either with Ubuntu Mate 15.10 upgraded through the PPA, or with Ubuntu Mate 16.04.

My assumption is that Mate Control Center fetches its translations from the desktop files, looking for Name[xx] (where xx is "fr" for french, "de" for german and so on), as it appears that the launchers that are not translated only have a generic english Name in their desktop, while the ones that are translated have the Name[xx] lines. I assume that before Mate 1.12 they had the translated name. If that's the case, I'm not sure why they were dropped in the .desktop supplied with Mate 1.12 but they might have been replaced by the X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain option.

They are translated in the menu presumably because they get their translation through the X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain line in their .desktop file.

The best way to fix this would probably to update Mate Control Center so that it checks for the Gettext domain if it can't find a localized Name entry.

It has been issued all the through from 15.10 , 16.04 and now to 16.10
This report is filed in Ubuntu MATE 16.10 Development Branch

Hi, upstream MATE dev here.

Yes, I confirm this in Mint 17 and Ubuntu 16.04. Not sure why it doesn't happen in Debian... maybe Brice's assumption is correct, need to check it.

If it's been tested on Debian stable, the Mate version available is probably older (1.10 or 1.08 I guess) and from what I remember on Ubuntu, the issue didn't appear before Mate 1.12.

It would be worth checking on Mate 1.10 (or older) if the problematic .desktop files were fully translated or if they've been changed afterwards. I've listed them in my original beu greport: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1592723

No, I'm using LMDE 2 (Linux Mint Debian Edition) which is based on Debian Stable but gets the latest MATE version once it's released. Also I have a VM with Debian Testing. I have to use the latest MATE version anyway as a developer :)

I can confirm that LMDE 2 has no issue with it though,
But, New Linux Mint 18 Sarah MATE still has this issue with it.
Please, see the screenshot

Case for Linux Mint 18 Sarah)

* Network
* Printers
* Time and Date
* Users and Groups
* Firewall Configuration
* Network Connections
* CompizConfig Settings Manager
* Desktop Sharing

It's worth noting that there are quite a lot of differences between the apps available in the settings between LMDE and Ubuntu Mate. Not sure how much the Ubuntu Mate devs tweak the environment (besides adding the usual Ubuntu specific stuff, like "Software and Updates" or the "Language support" app that might be a different one as on other distros) and if it's an upstream bug.

Just in case, I add a screenshot of what I have on a french Ubuntu Mate 16.04. Note that a few apps have been added by me and it's pretty much expected that they're not translated (like Qt5 or Openbox settings).

LMDE is different for sure, but the issue affects main edition of Mint (Mint 17 and 18) - this edition is Ubuntu-based. So it's not just Ubuntu MATE, it's something in Ubuntu that m-c-c doesn't handle correctly.

In Mint-Mate 18 (Sarah) this is still the case. Drop-down menus show Dutch and in the Control Center it is partly not translated. I edited all .desktop files concerned in /usr/share/applications for all but one that I could not find. Just a matter of search-and-find and then replace the text lines file by file.

I don't know if these files are generated during installation or whether they are part of the general translation team. I could not find anything that points to translation pages on launchpad.

Many people in the Netherlands seem to prefer English over Dutch in their operating systems for most people are trained in English to start with in IT...

Cheers,
Peter

See my edited control center in Mint-Mate 17.3

Just created Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS on a Raspberry Pi: same problem occurs. I can add the Name[nl]= and Comment[nl]= lines to these files but the question remains: Why are they not updated during installation? It seems to me that these files are not touched at all during installation when looking at the file dates so they probably get downloaded or just partly downloaded during installation. If so, why are they not incorporating all these GenericName= Name= and Comments= lines if effort is done by translators on LaunchPad? Not only the Control Center is affected here but the drop-down menus too are partly untranslated. I did an update run on missing translations but that did not help. In a few cases the [nl] line was missing in the file but many others were there so maybe it's indeed a translation job too.

Cheers,
Peter

Please can someone confirm if this issue is fixed in Ubuntu MATE 17.10 daily.

It's not. Just installed Ubuntu MATE 17.10 in a VM, the behavious is the same as before.

[Expired for mate-control-center (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

It might not be a Ubuntu MATE driven issue though,
But, It happens to Ubuntu MATE and other MATE based Ubuntu driven OSes like Linux Mint MATE also.
And, it is still the case for Linux Mint 18.3 MATE.
As such, This report should not be expired, until we find out the reasons of it.

So I have a fix now. It's not merged yet, need some testing.

https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-control-center/pull/314

@Gunnar Hjalmarsson (https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj) Can you handle this?

@Vlad Orlov
Good news and All we have to do is awaiting?

Well, upstream testing is currently stalled, so maybe I'll create a PPA and place the patched m-c-c there for everyone to test.

That is good!
So, It means that it would be tested more by users through PPA
And, After that, it would be the next process that merging to launchpad lp
Right?
Thank you, this is really happy news for us.

There we go: https://launchpad.net/~monsta/+archive/ubuntu/testing

I've uploaded patched m-c-c for Ubuntu 17.10. If you wish to test the fix in 16.04 or 17.04, let me know.

Alright, Let me test ubuntu-MATE 17.10 and Linux Mint 18, 18.3.

And, Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and 17.04 as well.

In case of Korean in Ubuntu MATE 17.10, It worked well except two names.
Software Boutique and MATE tweak.

I can confirm that the fix seems to work on my french Ubuntu MATE too.

@Jung-Kyu Park: it's normal that Software Boutique and MATE Tweak stay in english as they have no translation in their .desktop file. It's not an issue with the patch, rather with these two launchers themselves.

Ok, uploaded the patched packages for 16.04 and 17.04 too.

I see the same with Software Boutique and MATE Tweak in all Ubuntu versions (with Russian locale). It's indeed possible they're not translated at all.

= Case for Korean =

Tested after full upgrade.
$ sudo apt update;sudo apt full-upgrade
$ sudo reboot
$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:monsta/testing
$ sudo apt update;sudo apt upgrade

It has been resolved a lot in Ubuntu MATE series though, but there are still things left in some editions.

- Ubuntu MATE 17.10
The rest
* Software Boutique
* MATE Tweak

- Ubuntu MATE 17.04
The rest
* Network
* Printers
* Time and Date
* Users and Groups
* LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings
* Software Boutique
* MATE Tweak

- Ubuntu MATE 16.04
The rest
* Welcome
* LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings
* Software Boutique
* MATE Tweak
* Qt4 Settings

It doesn’t seem to work for Linux Mint 18 series via PPA.
Or, Please, let me know what I should do for testing it in Linux Mint 18 series.
She shows me “All packages are up to date" in terminal during update.

- Linux Mint 18, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3
Nothing happened
* Network
* Printers
* Time and Date
* Users and Groups
* Disks
* Firewall Configuration
* Network Connections
* CompizConfig Settings Manager
* Desktop Sharing

In 17.04 it should be the same as in 17.10. Please check if you have m-c-c from my PPA.

Software Boutique and MATE Tweak can be ignored. I've checked these packages, there are no translations for .desktop files.

For Mint it's more complicated. Mint 18.x releases are based on Ubuntu 16.04, which has MATE 1.12. But all Mint 18.x releases have newer versions of MATE in Mint's own repos. Mint 18 has 1.14, Mint 18.1 has 1.16, Mint 18.2 and 18.3 have 1.18. So the PPA (which has only update for 1.12) is useless for them.

"In 17.04 it should be the same as in 17.10. Please check if you have m-c-c from my PPA."
I've checked that again but, packages are from your PPA.
(mate-control-center & m-c-c-common 1.18.1-0ubuntu1ppa1~ubuntu17.04)

"So the PPA (which has only update for 1.12) is useless for them."
Alright, however, I hope to test it and hope it to work for Linux Mint 18 series soon.

Screenshot of m-c-c package status.

@Vlad Orlov
It will come soon EOL of the Ubuntu MATE 17.04 on January 2018.
Hence, I think you don't need to think of it as big.
It seems well resolved in Ubuntu MATE 17.10.
It means, in my opinion, you may release the fix after the test of it in Linux Mint 18 series.
This is good work.

Check libmate-slab0 and libmate-window-settings1 too, they need to be the same version as m-c-c.

I know 17.04 is going EOL at the end of January. I just want to make sure the fix works.

libmate-slab0 & libmate-window-settings1 are the same version with m-c-c
(1.18.1-0ubuntu1ppa1~ubuntu17.04)

Ok... are these items translated in the panel's menu?

NO, They are not, same in the panel's menu.
Untranslated.

Oh, but that means there's some problem with their translations, not with m-c-c.

Yes, It seems deeply related to the completion level of translations.
For this reason, this fix works well for Ubuntu MATE, I think.
And, I hope it to work for the Linux Mint as well.
Good!

Check the untranslated items in 16.04 too (compare with the panel's menu) - just in case.

Right, same as the 17.04!
Resolved, I think.

Alright, I'll merge the fix upstream then and will prepare the required stuff for updates in Ubuntu. Thanks for testing :)

Mint will get the update after we release a new 1.18.x version.

Oh, and don't forget to disable or remove the PPA. I might use it for testing other packages in the future, and you might get a surprise update :)

Nice! Good news!
Thank you for having attention.
It would be another happy news to be waiting release.
Thank you.

It might be useful to add how to properly remove the PPA. Don't just disable or remove it from your sources or the packages will stay. Install ppa-puge if it's not already:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

then, use it to disable the PPA and rollback the packages to the version from the Ubuntu repos:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:monsta/testing

Finally, you can remove it (it will be disabled) from the Software Sources.

This bug was fixed in the package mate-control-center - 1.18.2-2

---------------
mate-control-center (1.18.2-2) unstable; urgency=medium

  [ Martin Wimpress ]
  * debian/control:
    + Bump Standards: to 4.1.2. No changes needed.
    + Drop B-D autotools-dev. Since compatibility level 10, debhelper enables
      the autoreconf sequence by default.
  * debian/patches:
    + Add 0000_fix_external_localizations_in_desktop_files.patch. Fix
      support for external localizations in .desktop files. (LP: #1594959)
  * debian/watch:
    + Update URI to use HTTPS.

  [ Mike Gabriel ]
  * debian/control:
    + Even bump Standards-Version: to 4.1.3. No changes needed.

 -- Mike Gabriel <email address hidden> Fri, 05 Jan 2018 23:13:58 +0100