Automatically download and install dictionaries for languages available on the system

[ovari]

Dictionaries for languages other than English have to be downloaded manually from:
https://addons.thunderbird.net/language-tools/
and installed through:
Menu Bar > Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > Install Add-on From File
You may need to restart app in order to make changes effective.
https://github.com/flathub/org.mozilla.Thunderbird#language-support

Automatically download and install dictionaries for languages available on the system
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1590916

What do you think?

@darktrojan do you have ideas on how this can be achieved?

Thank you

[darktrojan]

With the prefs intl.multilingual.enabled and intl.multilingual.downloadEnabled set to true the preferences tab can download language packs. I don't know how it works or the reason those prefs are set to false by default but that's probably a good starting point.

[ovari]

@darktrojan thank you for the references to the settings.

@Erick555 can these preferences be set in the flatpak version? Thank you

[Erick555]

AFAIK intl.multilingual.enabled will be set to true with FF/TB 69+. I wanted to keep upstream defaults but considering that runtime dictionaries doesn't seem working I may switch config with next update. It would still need manual user action though.

[ovari]

@Erick555 What manual user action is still required?

Would the implementation of this upstream request enable automatic download and install of dictionaries with no manual action required?
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1590206
Could not add you @Erick555 to the above bug as your email address is unknown. Please add yourself to the above bug. Thank you

[Erick555]

@ovari actually I don't see enabling those two options having impact on dictionaries at all. I still have only English (US) and new one can be only downloaded from addon store.

[ovari]

@darktrojan does enable those two options have an impact on the dictionaries at all for you? Thank you

[darktrojan]

Oh, sorry I misread, for some reason I thought you were talking about language packs…

So to answer your actual original question, no, I don't know how that could be achieved. All I know is there's list of dictionaries, and it doesn't even contain all available dictionaries. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/language-tools/

[ovari]

Automatically download and install dictionaries for languages available on the system
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1590916

[Erick555]

Upstream closed the isue as WONTFIX so there is no thing we can do here.