You are stripping Russian locale name by netscape wrapper from "ru_RU.KOI8-R" to "ru". But it's impossible to enter text in Russian in any input field, including message composer, if LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R is not set. And we like to see message dates in Russian when LC_TIME is set. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't strip ru_RU.KOI8-R!
Arrgh. Unfortunately, if we leave it like that, the address book will start exploding if you try to use it.
Hm, I suppose we could leave LANG as ru, unset LC_ALL, and set LC_CTYPE and LC_TIME explicitly; would that work for you?
from modified wrapper's output: + unset LC_ALL + export LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R + LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R + export LC_TIME=ru_RU.KOI8-R + LC_TIME=ru_RU.KOI8-R + locale LANG=ru LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R LC_NUMERIC="ru" LC_TIME=ru_RU.KOI8-R LC_COLLATE="ru" LC_MONETARY="ru" LC_MESSAGES="ru" This works.
Created attachment 130 [details] Modified wrapper for testing only
I found that problem is not Russian-specific. To see message dates in composer window in national format, it's necessary to LC_TIME to be set to full name of directory in /usr/share/locale where compiled LC_TIME is placed. Try to enter command "LC_ALL=fr date" and "LC_ALL=fr_FR date" and see the difference. The same for LC_CTYPE - if corresponding compiled locale category is not available, it's impossible to type non-Latin1 characters. So, please preserve full names like ru_RU.KOI8-R, uk_UA etc. for at least LC_CTYPE and LC_TIME.
Actually, netscape (as of 4.72) seems to no longer write broken locale settings to preferences.js/liprefs.js, so it looks like the locale munging can be removed.