Re: Suggestion: No more language packs for macOS as they are fundamentally broken

Sounds like a good solution, as the current method is fundamentally broken wrt code-signing, and is 
an extra step for users

How big would the .app bundle be? That would be the only drawback

I see the LO Vanilla build is 2.2 GB vs 0.8 GB for a single language build

This is still less than MS Office that also bundles localizations:
Word: 2.1 GB
Excel: 1.7 GB
PowerPoint: 1.6 GB

So LO would still beat the 5.3 GB in total for the competition :)

A workaround would be to offer also an English-only build for users short on disk space - Apple was 
very stingy on SSD size for a while, with only 128 GB on the default models...

> On 21 May 2020, at 12:35, Tor Lillqvist <tml@iki.fi> wrote:
>
> It has long been known that the way language packs work, adding new files into an existing 
> LibreOffice app bundle, is fundamentally wrong on macOS. In the current and previous macOS 
> versions it is even more wrong, as installing a language pack often actively prevents LibreOffice 
> from working.
>
> I have attempted to change how language packs work for some weeks now (intermixed with other 
> work) by trying a couple of approaches to make the code look for the things that language packs 
> install in more places than where it currently does. But it is quite complicated.
>
> A much easier solution would be for TDF to simply stop building and distributing language packs 
> for macOS.
>
> Instead, my suggestion is that what should be distributed is:
> A build with a multitude of UI languages. Not all, but those with "good enough" coverage. This 
> build would also contain all dictionaries (even for languages for which the UI is not included)
> A number of other builds each with some geographic subset of the rest of the UI languages, plus 
> English (and, perhaps French, Russian, and other languages that are commonly known as non-native 
> languages in the geographic area in question). Also in these builds all dictionaries would be 
> included.
> As the macOS build of LibreOffice currently seems to show help in the browser from the TDF 
> website anyway, no help should be included in any build. When the problem that prevents help 
> included in the app bundle from being shown in the browser has been fixed, that would need to be 
> reconsidered.
>
> If somebody needs LibreOffice with UI in languages that are in separate builds, they would need 
> to install two copies of LibreOffice.
>
> Please, if you don't use macOS and have nothing constructive to say, suppress any knee-jerk 
> reaction.
>
> --tml
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