Opened 4 years ago

Closed 4 years ago

Last modified 4 years ago

#16143 closed bug (no change required)

Formatting: Currency symbols are not displayed for Locale language groups

Reported by: bitigchi Owned by: pulkomandy
Priority: normal Milestone: Unscheduled
Component: Preferences/Locale Version: R1/Development
Keywords: Cc:
Blocked By: Blocking:
Platform: All

Description

Steps:

  • Go to Preferences -> Locale -> Formatting tab

Results:

  • Currency symbols are not displayed unless a specific country is selected. If the selection remains at the language name, a placeholder sign is displayed.

Change History (6)

comment:1 by pulkomandy, 4 years ago

I don't understand what you mean. French is used in Canada (uses CAN$), France (uses €), various african countries (Use Franc CFA), and Switzerland (uses CHF).

When no country is specified, the generic currency symbol is used, because that's the correct (but little known) way to handle it. Using an arbitrary country specific unit would not be appropriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_sign_(typography)

comment:2 by bitigchi, 4 years ago

Yeah, that's correct for multiple currencies under the same language. But to an untrained eye, this looks like an error. There ought to be a better way to handle this.

Maybe remove language groups altogether, and display all variants? I don't see any immediate advantage to group all languages, other than saving a bit of a space. Plus it adds another click to the process. A find bar should be used instead for easy filtering.

Version 0, edited 4 years ago by bitigchi (next)

comment:3 by pulkomandy, 4 years ago

The generic no-country locale can be selected, that's on purpose. It's a valid setting to use, for example, "English - no specific country". In fact that's what FirstBootPrompt sets by default, because it doesn't ask you for a country (except for Portuguese language).

comment:4 by bitigchi, 4 years ago

"No country, just language" setting should be present alongside the countries of course. There are countries where only one language/one currency is used, and there are others like English and French, spread out throughout countries as you mentioned above. And the FirstBootPrompt question is next, since it should let you specify these settings, but that's for another ticket.

The currency sign is not associated with a specific currency, that's why its use should be intentional when needed, not set by default.

comment:5 by pulkomandy, 4 years ago

Resolution: no change required
Status: newclosed

The FirstBootPrompt is also intentionally very reduced. The goal is to let you run Installer with a language you understand and a keyboard layout matching your hardware. That's it. It is not a configuration wizard. The Installer does not need to know which country you are in, so FirstBootPrompt doesn't ask.

The currency signs are from ICU data, and while they are not perfect, there is quite reliably one official or de facto money in use in each country. And when there is not, the generic sign can be used, too.

In any case, there is nothing to change here, the alternative would be to show $ or € or whatever, which is not appropriate. Or any other made up character, which will be worse than the current one which is specifically designed for this purpose.

in reply to:  5 comment:6 by bitigchi, 4 years ago

Replying to pulkomandy:

The currency signs are from ICU data, and while they are not perfect, there is quite reliably one official or de facto money in use in each country. And when there is not, the generic sign can be used, too.

In any case, there is nothing to change here, the alternative would be to show $ or € or whatever, which is not appropriate. Or any other made up character, which will be worse than the current one which is specifically designed for this purpose.

What is the relevance of what you say here with using the generic sign as default? Is it used by default in any country?

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