Following the previous post about the French localization of Fennec 0.4 for Nokia n8X0, I'll try to explain how we did this.

Prerequies : you need a debian based system, debian, ubuntu, the tablet itself should work, in fact the really important piece of software is dpkg-deb.

  • Make 2 directories, one for Fennec one for Xulrunner.
  • Change to Fennec directory and unpack the debian packages:

dpkg-deb -e ../fennec_0.4_armel.deb .

dpkg-deb -b ../fennec_0.4_armel.deb .

You have now in your directory 3 directories DEBIAN, etc and usr.

  • Copy usr/local/fennec/chrome/en-US.jar in another directory where you can unzip it : unzip en-US.jar
  • You now have 5 files to localize : bookmarks.dtd, browser.dtd, browser.properties, hud.dtd, toolbar.dtd.

They are really short, and in general the strings already exist in your Firefox localization.

  • Remove en-US.jar from your directory and zip the newly localized file :

zip -r ab-AB.jar *

where ab-AB is your locale code.

  • Put your ab-AB.jar in usr/local/fennec/chrome/
  • Remove en-US.jar from usr/local/fennec/chrome/, and move en-US.manifest to ab-AB.manifest.
  • Edit ab-AB.manifest, change all en-US occurrences to ab-AB.
  • In your Fennec directory, rebuild the debian package :

dpkg-deb -b . ../fennec_0.4_armel.ab-AB.deb

Don't worry about the warning.

Et voilà, Fennec is localized in your language.

  • Now make the same for xulrunner.
  • Unpack the debian package:

dpkg-deb -e ../xulrunner_1.9.1a1pre_armel.deb .

dpkg-deb -b ../xulrunner_1.9.1a1pre_armel.deb .

In the case of xulrunner you have to make the DEBIAN directory yourself :

mkdir DEBIAN 
mv control md5sums postinst prerm DEBIAN
  • Take your ab-AB.jar from your firefox localization and unzip it : unzip ab-AB.jar.
  • Remove the reporter directory as it is not needed.
  • There is only one entity to change between the two versions : in the file mozapps/xpinstall/xpinstallconfirm.dtd change <!ENTITY warningMain.label to : <!ENTITY warningPrimary.label. That's all.
  • Re zip your ab-AB.jar : zip -r ab-AB.jar *
  • Put your ab-AB.jar in usr/local/xulrunner/chrome/
  • Remove en-US.jar from usr/local/xulrunner/chrome/, and move en-US.manifest to ab-AB.manifest.
  • Edit ab-AB.manifest, change all en-US occurrence to ab-AB.
  • In your Xulrunner directory, rebuild the debian package :

dpkg-deb -b . ../xulrunner_1.9.1a1pre_armel.ab-AB.deb

Don't worry about the warning.

Et voilà, xulrunner is localized in your language.

You now have two debian packages : xulrunner_1.9.1a1pre_armel.ab-AB.deb and fennec_0.4_armel.ab-AB.deb which you can install on your tablet.

Fennec 04

Hope this will help.