I’ve ran into this multiple times, but people just dont care to remember all application names. And that really slows them down especially when they are 40+ which slows down adoption.
How great the driver-seat/user-interface has become by being able to choose an familiar interface like cuptertino and redmond. The road signs are still in tech instead of regular english.
They do not understand “caja” or “pluma” , they search for filemanager and texteditor (and i dont blame them).
Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem ?
From your idiom, I’d hazard a guess that you’re a native US English speaker. You may not know that the lead developers are Spanish speakers, as are most people in the Western Hemisphere. Assuming the use of English as the “proper and official” name for everyone else is rather ethnocentric–and I say this as another native US English-only speaker. When I first started using Mate, I had the same reaction as you then, when I thought about it…
I think you’ll have unending problems trying to change the actual program name. But, what can easily be done is change the text that appears under the icon in the menus, and the text that appears when you hover over an icon on the Plank or other dock.
This text comes from the "Name= " field inside the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications. Fire up your favorite text editor as root user, use locate or find to pick the correct .desktop file to edit, change the line, save the file, and changes will appear in hover text, or under menu icons immediately.
One further note: the proper way to do this is to create a separate set of .desktop files under /usr/local/share/applications, then use those on the dock and menus. Under /usr/share/applications, .desktop files that you have altered may be replaced by software updates. That doesn’t happen under /usr/local/share/applications. But then, /usr/local files would never be updated, which might create other problems. Unless you really know your way around, I think you would be better off changing in the original location, then changing them again if software updates cause a reversion to the old name.
I am American born but have lived in Mexico for a couple decades, and becoming simi fluent.
karnemelk I suggest starting with the Main Menu… right click on the app, then edit the Name: field. change the Comment: field also. This changes the Displayed Text only, it does not mess with your actual programs at all.
Then, do the same thing with the launchers on the panels… right click, edit.
BTW: the icon theme may be a further stumbling block… for example I see a icon with little tablet with a pencil. No need to read the text.
If you want to dig in a bit deeper you can change icons on a per-launcher basis … I do that with my syncthing and a couple others…
Thanks, mexsudo! I wonder if there are some differences between different panel layouts. I’m using Cupertino plus Brisk in the top panel. A right click on an icon doesn’t bring up anything pertaining to naming or text: just possible application actions. Makes me wonder if what I’m using is drawn from .desktop files only, and your menus are coming from a different source.
Thanks. Yeah, when I drag an icon, I can only drop it on Plank (and there are only choices like Keep in Dock, Open File) on the menu. With Global Menu operating, there is no spare top panel space to drop anything. The Brisk seems to have only the same icons and text that correspond to .desktop files, and not anything that looks like the older style menus from the 8.04 or 10.04 times.
But I don’t need to fix anything–I just wanted to point out to OP that your method might be needed instead of my method, depending on which panel setup is in use. He mentioned Cupertino and Redmond: Cupertino I know; Redmond I’ve never played with.
Great story, but they selected ->English<- during installation, so ppl expect things to be in English. If they had selected ->Spanish<- I would totally agree
I’ve been playing around with the desktop files, but like you said updates revert them
We need a button for our “computer challenged” friends/family/co-workers. The “Idiot R-etard Proof” button, of course we should name it something else. And i would happily use it myself.
I’m not a developer, but it looks like that capability already exists in the .desktop files. There are lines in caja.desktop in the form Name[lang]=Caja. Some of those are already localized, particularly those in non-Latin alphabets.
But it seems the “Name” field is for the program’s name. Firefox fudges that by using “Firefox Web Browser”. It would take someone with knowledge of the idiom of what programs are called in various languages. For instance, is “editor de texto” the type of software Pluma is?
The applications you mention are all MATE, so upstream wouldn’t be involved.
I see two issues: 1) is it appropriate to co-opt the name field, adding a localized description, and 2) obtaining an idiomatic translation of the function of the program into the different languages. The first is a developer decision, and the second happens through development.
Suggest you place a feature request on github. Perhaps someone will reply with details on how to do that. I understand that developers may not regularly see this forum. It seems it would be a simple job to at least hit the one or two dozen major languages for the five or so programs involved. It seems the hard part, which most anyone could volunteer for, would be collecting an appropriate translation from native speakers of each language.
(added later): I notice that there is already a field for the general description: GenericName. It is fully-translated. Perhaps this is as simple as Plank/Panel/Menu using and displaying more information which already exists.
The original developer of MATE was from Argentina, and he took some of the cryptic names from GNOME and made them similarly cryptic in Spanish
Nautilus - Caja (means box, as in file box)
Evince - Atril (means lectern)
Gedit - Pluma (means pen, or quill, depending who you ask)
File Roller - Engrampa (not super familiar with this word, but in my home country “engrapar” means to staple together)
Alacarte - Mozo (means waiter, used in the context of someone who handles your menu)
I use the Advanced MATE Menu and by default it shows the localized description under the program name. It can also be changed to show the description on top. As far as I know, hovering on any program icon in the traditional menu will also show a tooltip with the localized description.
All the descriptions are localized. We use transifex, and translations are where we have the most volunteers contributing on a regular basis.
I'm 53 and switched to UM this year. So, your theory that people over 40+ need help to cross the street isn't really helping your people. You should encourage them to learn more in their life and to use Wikipedia.
Caja is only a name. If I hover over my Caja icon in my Redmond UI, it tells me "Browse the file system with the file manager".
Each operating system has got its own name for File browser. Caja, Nautilus, Finder, Windows Explorer = all the same:
I wonder if you have asked Apple to change the name Finder into File manager.
This is always going to be a problem no matter what operating system you use because different things have different names. Not many people know that Windows’ shell and file manager is known as “Explorer” because usually, they don’t encounter it as “Windows Explorer” as it’s right there in their face and don’t pay attention to the name of the application in the titlebar.
People literally can’t use task manager in Windows. So good luck getting those same people to use xprop or even view any program’s “About” dialog. The best thing you can do is to leave a reference for what each program is, and either tell people to deal with it or load their Bash shell with a bunch of aliases using generic names which are more recognizable.
I am not really sure about this, but is there some way to use XDG for generic application names?
I’ve given up on changing people. I decided to nudge them into the right direction and where they rightfully fail (like this case) ill solve the problem for them.
i still do not think that can resolve it. I think, much like XFCE MATE needs a handy-dandy index of the DE’s programs right into the welcome screen. Better if it’s searchable, and it could be a “Quick help” feature that gets users where they want to go fast. The actual help can then be provided in the programs executed from there, or by suggestion of the quick help section.
