Obsolete web technologies on Ubuntu Help and platform suggestion

Documentation
#1

I started translating Ubuntu Help using launchpad and now I have several points I’d like to discuss:

  1. This string for example is obsolete, all modern browsers use Web Extensions for plugins, this architecture is no longer relevant.
  2. How about considering a more Wiki content translation system, Wikipedia has some great article translation tools, these are much more fluent to use than breaking the strings into strings and losing the context.

I’m not sure I’ll complete the translation because Israelis don’t tend to use guides but I’ll consider if I’ll get a different vibe from the community (which is usually very quiet).

Kind regards,
Yaron.

#2

That string is on a page which explains how to use Flash on Ubuntu, and the page is relevant until the technique is EOL, which has not happened yet. (In the 18.04 version of the page we’ll inform about Adobe’s decision to stop providing updates of Flash Player at the end of 2020.)

The Ubuntu Desktop Guide consists to more than 90% av pages from GNOME Help, which uses Mallard for markup, and thus gettext for translations. Mallard has proved to work well for its purpose, and I’m not aware of any plan to replace it. The few pages provided by the ubuntu-docs package (the ubuntu-help template) are only a supplement, and must use the same tools.

I’m curious about what Israelis do instead. :wink: Anyway, following what I mentioned above, translating ubuntu-help at LP is of limited value as long as gnome-help is almost 100% untranslated.

#3

They just go with it, they rather fail than admit they’re not sure about something.

Slight misunderstanding because of the link, It has nothing to do with the Flash side, it is more relevant to the way browsers are handling extensions, NPAPI for Firefox and PPAPI (a.k.a pepper) for Chrome are both obsolete, WebExt is the most up to date technology, most of the modern browsers no longer work with any of these technologies.

I understand yet this method is not the easiest to work with and Ubuntu can chart it’s own way, even when gettext involved, It’s not super urgent but I sure think that there are better options.

#4

Flash is not available as a Web Extension. It is in fact a NPAPI plugin for Firefox.

#5

Indeed, and a PPAPI plugin for e.g. Chromium.

@yaron: I’m well aware of the fact that both Flash itself and the technology needed to support it are obsolete. Firefox has dropped support for NPAPI plugins, except for just Flash. Nevertheless, Flash is still needed to access some web services, and that’s why we still inform the users on this page about the easiest way to use it on Ubuntu. Like the rest of the desktop guide, it’s basically a howto page. It’s not intended to provide a full description on the related technology evolution.

If you have found any information on that page which is incorrect and/or outdated, please let me know.

#6

I wasn’t talking about Flash in the first place, I was talking about NPAPI and PPAPI only, if there’s an effect on Flash that’s a different issue, is this how these support Flash nowadays? because I realized they ditched these technologies completely…

I sure will :slight_smile: