Using piaip’s mozip tool, it’s fairly easy to create fully a localised Mozilla installer, adding the localised elements into the binary and updating the config.ini so they get installed.
The de facto localisable resources are:
- langabCD.xpi, the language pack for the UI;
- regab.xpi, the region pack, which can contain ‘local’ bookmarks and search engines;
- deflabCD.xpi, the default set of bookmarks, search engines etc used on creation of a new profile;
- now the spellchecker’s included, spellcheck_abCD.xpi.
More More More:
If you wish to include extra customisations, you will require:
- Your Mozilla Suite monolithic installer.
- piaip’s mozip tool (binary and source available).
- An NT-based installation of Windows.
- The XPI(s) for the extras you wish to include. The first version of the en-GB Mozilla 1.5 includes
and modified versions of
- David Illsley’s UABar, a user-agent spoofer; and
- velcrospud’s Download Statusbar, a replacement for the Download Manager/Dialogue Boxes which displays the state of all downloads in a bar at the bottom of each window.
Modified?
The XPIs were modified for different reasons: I altered UABar simply because the included user agent strings are a bit old – I don’t really want to pretend that I’m using a 0.9x version of Mozilla anyway – and so I’ve updated the strings so the user can pretend to be more modern browsers, including Netscape 7.1 (for those few sites which will ‘allow’ the use of Netscape but (try to) block Mozilla).
However, the install script for Download StatusBar is interactive; in the monolithic installer, scripts must not interact with the user, so I had to comment out all the dialogues and make it simply install itself into the program’s (rather than user’s) directory tree.
Installing the extras
In config.ini, add a new Component section for each xpi to install at the end of the existing sections around line 700:
[Component Diggler] Description Short=Diggler Location Bar Extension ;*** LOCALIZE ME BABY *** Description Long=Location Bar Usability Enhancement Archive=diggler-0.6.xpi Install Size=42 Install Size System=1 Install Size Archive=9 Attributes=SELECTED
The attributes are for choosing the state of the item - selected/unselected, visible/invisible and so on.
Next, add the Component(s) to the Setup Type lists, which begin around line 200. I suggest only installing into the ‘Custom’ type, so that the Browser Only and Full setups match the en-US version:
; Make sure Component QFA is LAST so 3rd party developers who might not want
; this component can easily remove it.
C11=Component DOM Inspector
C12=Component Diggler
C13=Component DownloadStatusBar
C14=Component UABar
C15=Component QFA
Finally, add the new files to the installer and update the config.ini script:
C:\Mozinstaller>mozip -u mozilla-win32-1.5-installer-sea.exe diggler-0.6.xpi Adding File: 'DIGGLER-0.6.XPI': 9088/9036(un/compressed) bytes written C:\Mozinstaller>mozip -u mozilla-win32-1.5-installer-sea.exe downbar_mozilla_mod.xpi Adding File: 'DOWNBAR_MOZILLA_MOD.XPI': 22138/22063(un/compressed) bytes written C:\Mozinstaller>mozip -u mozilla-win32-1.5-installer-sea.exe uabar_mod.xpi Adding File: 'UABAR_MOD.XPI': 4513/4161(un/compressed) bytes written C:\Mozinstaller>mozip -u mozilla-win32-1.5-installer-sea.exe config.ini Adding File: 'CONFIG.INI': 47810/11916(un/compressed) bytes written C:\Mozinstaller>
What Next?
If you wish, download the fruits of my labours direct from the eu.mozilla.org servers (11.7 MB).
Oh, me? I'm going to have a look at localising the mighty Firebird, sorry, fox.
Update: (2004-May-09) Firefox and Thunderbird localisations now available.