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Next stop: Antarctica?

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A couple of days ago I posted about the Microsoft Locale Builder. But what about the locales that we're adding new for Vista? A few interesting facts:

  • When Vista ships, it will include locale support for over 130 languages built in as part of Windows locales.
  • The built-in writing system support plus the Locale Builder and Keyboard Layout Creator tools will make Windows linguistically accessible for >90% of the world's literate population -- this is over 3.5 billion people!
  • Windows will ship locales for languages and regions in every continent except Antarctica.
  • Every locale that Windows ships has linguistically appropriate sorting behavior built in.
  • We are adding over 60 new locales on top of what we shipped with XP, including new support for customers in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
  • The Local Language Program is producing fully localized versions of Windows Vista for 35 languages, with partial localization support for over 60 more.
  • Windows locales are now supplementing LCID identifiers with string-based identifiers that will allow developers to use IETF names in addition to LCIDs to retrieve locale data via our APIs. The name-based support makes it easier for users to create custom locales using standard names that everyone in the industry will recognize.
  • We are working with beta testers for all of the new locales that we have added for Vista in order to ensure that the data we ship are of the highest possible quality.

If you're a beta tester and you're finding problems with your locale support (or with some other aspect of your international support), please let me know.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2006
    Will the Keyboard Layout Creator tool be updated? It cannot remap non-alphanumeric keys at all.

    There are various reasons why a user might want to remap these keys:
    - increasing accessibility for users with disabilities
    - simplifying the keyboard and precluding access to certain keys (for schools, kiosks, etc.)
    - improving efficiency by relocating commonly-used keys (for power users, POS applications, etc.)
    - accommodating non-standard keyboards

    I have had to edit the registry (as described at http://www.usnetizen.com/fix_capslock.html) because of this limitation. Not exactly user-friendly!

    If you are curious, I modified:
    1. Application key --> Caps Lock (My keyboard does not have an application/context menu key, and I wanted something faster than SHIFT+F10 and be rid of aCCIDENTAL cAPS at the same time.)
    2. Caps Lock --> Scroll Lock (To keep Caps Lock in case I need it.)
    3. F1 <--> F12 (To stop opening help when I wanted cancel/ESC or, in Excel, edit cell/F2.)
  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2006
    Actually this feedback is very timely, because we have had a lot of discussion regarding possible updates to MSKLC. Version one of the tool has been pretty well-received, but the stuff you list is indeed on our (not short) list of requirements for the future. We have not yet started real development on version two, but we are actively tracking and prioritizing requirements since we know that the first version has some built-in limitations that need to be addressed.
  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2007
    The comment has been removed
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    June 13, 2009
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