LocalCustomisation/NewZealand

Contents

New Zealand customisation script
Long Term Solutions
1. English Translation Team
2. Things to do (aka brain dump)

This page mentions issues with Ubuntu LTS 6.06 specific to New Zealand, and should be considered a stop gap measure to get you up and running until the NZ dictionaries are available from the repositories.

This page is brought to you by the New Zealand LoCo team.

New Zealand customisation script

This script, written by John McPherson, will set your PC up for the en_NZ locale, and install en_NZ dictionaries for OpenOffice.org and myspell.

How to use

Click Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor. Copy the below code into the editor:

VERSION="20060729"

# should work with ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy) and 6.06 (Dapper)

echo "## Locale Settings ($VERSION) ##"
#### locale
#means correct date formatting etc in locale-aware apps.

GENLOCALE=0
echo -n 'Checking if en_NZ locale is set up: '
# 6.06 dapper and later use this file
enlangfile=/var/lib/locales/supported.d/en
# 5.10 breezy and earlier used this file
if ! test -f $enlangfile; then enlangfile=/etc/locale.gen ; fi
if ! grep -q '^en_NZ[\. ]UTF-8' $enlangfile ; then
    echo 'not set up.'
# could do "dpkg-reconfigure locales" and select en_NZ.UTF-8 but that
# requires user intervention
    echo 'Adding UTF-8 version of en_NZ locale.'
    echo 'en_NZ.UTF-8 UTF-8' >> $enlangfile
    GENLOCALE=1
else
    echo 'already available.'
fi

# dunno where other distros put this file
nz_locale_file=/usr/share/i18n/locales/en_NZ
if test -r $nz_locale_file ; then
    echo -n 'Checking if en_NZ locale has AM/PM time strings set: '
    if grep -q '^am_pm\W*""' $nz_locale_file ; then
        echo 'missing. Now fixing'
        perl -i -pe '
s/^am_pm\s+"".*/am_pm       "<U0041><U004D>";"<U0050><U004D>"/
||
s!^t_fmt_ampm\s+"".*!t_fmt_ampm  "<U0025><U0049><U003A><U0025><U004D><U003A><U0025><U0053><U0020>/\n<U0025><U0070>"!' $nz_locale_file
        GENLOCALE=1
    else
        echo 'ok'
    fi
fi

if test $GENLOCALE -eq 1; then
    echo 'Updating the en_NZ locale.'
    locale-gen
fi

echo -n 'Setting en_NZ (UTF-8) as the default locale: '
# used to be /etc/environment (for debian sarge and ubuntu breezy),
# has dapper and later changed? (not sure where I got this idea from...)
# use /usr/sbin/update-locale instead?
localefile=/etc/default/locale
if test ! -r $localefile ; then
    #touch $localefile
    localefile=/etc/environment
fi
if test ! -r $localefile ; then
    touch $localefile
fi
if ! grep -q 'en_NZ\.UTF-8' $localefile ;
    then
    echo 'LANG=en_NZ.UTF-8' >> $localefile
    echo 'done'
    echo '(this will take effect from your next login)'
else
    echo 'already set'
fi

echo
echo '## Dictionary Settings ##'
### spelling/dictionaries
# wordlist (/usr/share/dict/words)
echo -n 'Checking British English word list: '
if ! dpkg -l wbritish > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
    echo 'need to install'
    apt-get install wbritish wamerican-
else
    echo 'already installed'
    # set as default? using debconf somehow?
fi


# we install myspell-en-gb as well as manually install the NZ one because
# this one is nicely packaged and has the necessary 'Provides:' headers
# myspell (used by openoffice and mozilla)
echo -n 'Checking British English dictionary (myspell format): '
if ! dpkg -l myspell-en-gb > /dev/null 2>&1  ; then
    echo 'need to install'
    apt-get install myspell-en-gb
else
    echo 'already installed'
fi
# do update-alternatives to make sure we point to the correct one?

# novell's suse linux professional 9.3 has myspell-new-zealand:
#  /suse/noarch/myspell-new-zealand-20030907-6.noarch.rpm
# similarly, mandriva has myspell-en_NZ
echo -n 'Checking for New Zealand English dictionary (myspell format): '
if ! test -r /usr/share/myspell/dicts/en_NZ.dic; then
    echo 'need to install'
    (   cd /usr/share/myspell/dicts &&
        echo 'Grabbing files via FTP:' &&
        wget ftp://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/en_NZ.zip && unzip en_NZ.zip
    )
else
    echo 'already installed'
fi

# this file currently has hyph_en_US in it?!
#ftp://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/hyph_en_NZ.zip


# openoffice's dictionary
# (openoffice uses "myspell" format dictionaries) -
if dpkg -l openoffice.org > /dev/null 2>&1 ;
then
    if ! dpkg -l openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-us > /dev/null 2>&1  ;
    then
        # dapper has an Australian thesaurus in universe
        echo 'Installing Thesaurus (en-AU only for now)'
        apt-get install openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-au
    fi
    echo -n 'Setting up OpenOffice.org to use NZ dictionary: '
#for hyphenation, either apt-get install the myspell-en-gb above, or grab
#openoffice's hyph_en_NZ)

#add the following to /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst
    if ! grep -q en_NZ /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst ;
    then
        cat >> /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst <<EOF

# added explicitly for NZ English
DICT en NZ en_NZ
HYPH en NZ hyph_en_GB
THES en NZ th_en_AU_v2

EOF
        echo 'done'
    else
        echo 'already set up'
    fi
else
    echo 'Openoffice.org not installed, not setting up dictionaries'
fi


exit

Save the file in your home folder as ubuntu-nz-setup.sh
Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal)
Enter the following command (you will be prompted for your password:)

sudo sh ./ubuntu-nz-setup.sh

Maori spellcheckers

Click Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor. Copy the below code into the editor:

#/bin/sh
cd /usr/share/myspell/dicts

echo 'Downloading dictionary files from OpenOffice mirror...'
wget ftp://ftp.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/contrib/dictionaries/mi_NZ.zip 
echo 'Extacting Dictionary Files...'
unzip mi_NZ.zip

echo "Tweaking openoffice dictionary config file - /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst"
cat >> /etc/openoffice/dictionary.lst <<EOF
# added explicitly for NZ Maori
DICT en NZ en_NZ
EOF
echo 'Install Complete'

Save the file in your home folder as fix-ooo-en-mi.sh
Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal)
Enter the following command (you will be prompted for your password:)

sudo sh ./fix-ooo-en-mi.sh

Setting defaults in OpenOffice.org

If you selected New Zealand as your location when you installed Ubuntu, then OpenOffice.org should already default to English (New Zealand).

If not, you can change it via the Tools menu -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages.

Change the "Default languages for documents/Western" setting.

Long Term Solutions

English Translation Team

English Translation Team

If your are interested in localisation, the en_GB translation team is looking for people to help with en_GB/AU/NZ-esque translations.

Things to do (aka brain dump)

Get OOo en_NZ and mi_NZ dictionaries packaged for Universe.
Get a thesaurus working - is there an OOo thesaurus for NZ?

Ubuntu Documentation