Merge lp://staging/~mvo/software-center/make-currency-part-of-the-db into lp://staging/software-center

According to designs, currency should only include the symbol, e.g. '$', not 'USD $'. This also applies to the formatted_price returned by data-provider.

(The reason we currently don't use only the dollar sign '$', is that it would cause confusion when using s-c in a country that uses an alternative dollar, ie the new zealand dollar, australian dollar or many others.)

I just discussed this with John on the Unity side. It is the worst sort of problem: tiny but extravagantly difficult.

Americans expect to see prices of the form "$1.23", and "US$ 1.23" looks silly.

But people in other countries that have a dollar -- Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc -- expect that "$1.23" refers to their local currency, and (unlike the typical American shopping site) there is nothing to hint that "these are US prices". So using "$" to mean US dollars would be misleading.

Both these groups of people are very large. So I think we really need to show prices to both in the way they expect. (Francs have a similar problem: there are nine different kinds of franc, of which most -- if not all -- are commonly abbreviated just "F".)

I can think of three solutions to this problem -- maybe there are others.

A. Rely on translations to translate "$" into "US$" in non-US varieties of English (e.g. en-AU). First problem: we have no idea what proportion of English users actually bother to choose their country variant. For example, if you migrated from the US to Australia, prices would continue to be shown in US dollars, and it wouldn't be at all obvious how to change this. Second problem: "US$" would make sense for Spaniards but would still look silly for Hispanic Americans.

B. Use GeoIP to work out where you are, displaying "$" for USD if you're in the US and "US$" if you aren't. First possible problem: the presentation would change if you were in another country temporarily (though maybe that's what we want anyway). Second possible problem: errors near the US-Canada border (I have no idea whether these actually happen).

C. Use "$" consistently, but have an explicit notice in the footer or somewhere, "All prices in US dollars". Later that text can change to a menu for choosing other currencies.

Hope my Australian perspective can help solve this for you:
The common thing we see in Australia is that prices quoted as $x.xx refer
to USD and I would expect to see AUD$x.xx or more commonly A$x.xx to
confirm that I'm being quoted in Australian dollars.
We resign ourselves to the $ symbol on international websites being used to
refer to USD and if I saw a price without the A or AUD prefix I would
assume it was being quoted in USD.
On Sep 17, 2012 10:23 PM, "Matthew Paul Thomas" <email address hidden> wrote:

> I just discussed this with John on the Unity side. It is the worst sort of
> problem: tiny but extravagantly difficult.
>
> Americans expect to see prices of the form "$1.23", and "US$ 1.23" looks
> silly.
>
> But people in other countries that have a dollar -- Canada, Australia,
> Hong Kong, Singapore, etc -- expect that "$1.23" refers to their local
> currency, and (unlike the typical American shopping site) there is nothing
> to hint that "these are US prices". So using "$" to mean US dollars would
> be misleading.
>
> Both these groups of people are very large. So I think we really need to
> show prices to both in the way they expect. (Francs have a similar problem:
> there are nine different kinds of franc, of which most -- if not all -- are
> commonly abbreviated just "F".)
>
> I can think of three solutions to this problem -- maybe there are others.
>
> A. Rely on translations to translate "$" into "US$" in non-US varieties of
> English (e.g. en-AU). First problem: we have no idea what proportion of
> English users actually bother to choose their country variant. For example,
> if you migrated from the US to Australia, prices would continue to be shown
> in US dollars, and it wouldn't be at all obvious how to change this. Second
> problem: "US$" would make sense for Spaniards but would still look silly
> for Hispanic Americans.
>
> B. Use GeoIP to work out where you are, displaying "$" for USD if you're
> in the US and "US$" if you aren't. First possible problem: the presentation
> would change if you were in another country temporarily (though maybe
> that's what we want anyway). Second possible problem: errors near the
> US-Canada border (I have no idea whether these actually happen).
>
> C. Use "$" consistently, but have an explicit notice in the footer or
> somewhere, "All prices in US dollars". Later that text can change to a menu
> for choosing other currencies.
> --
>
> https://code.launchpad.net/~mvo/software-center/make-currency-part-of-the-db/+merge/124367
> You are subscribed to branch lp:software-center.
>

I agree we should look at making it flexible and work for everybody, but since we only really support USD $ (and it's now hardcoded anyway) and we've very tight schedule today, can we stick with '$' for now?

@stolowski; yes, US dollars should be represented by just a "$" for now.

Ok, based on the most recent comments from Pawel and John, I'll approve and merge this one. We can revisit the details in a later branch.

Aaron, this is not a Web site. There is no .com address, Zip code in the footer, American spelling, or anything else to suggest that the prices aren't in Australian (or, for me, New Zealand) dollars. That's why it's wrong to use just "$" for US dollars everywhere. Which currencies we actually offer right now is irrelevant.