• Registered: 2006-10-16
  • Posts: 19

Topic: Multi-language problem

First, I would like to say many thanks to the developers of punBB. and i am definitly going to use it for my own forum. Just one small problem, when the forum has two languages setup (simplifid chinese and english), when the user change language settings in his profile, the chinese words in forum will become meaningless rubbish words. I think (not sure) the problem is coming from the encode of language php files.because the simplified chinese language pack is encoded in UTF-8, i don't think that english language pack is using UTF-8, not in my dreamwaver. So  i suggest, if it's possible to change all language files to UTF-8, or else just force header of the chinese language files. Thank you!

  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

Moved to Troubleshooting
Edit lang_common.php for English to use UTF-8 instead of ISO-8859-1

  • Registered: 2006-10-16
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Re: Multi-language problem

Thanks!  It works!

4 Reply by arekp

  • arekp
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Re: Multi-language problem

There is a second problem with multiple languages instaled.

My configuration:
PunBB 1.2.14
Instaled languages: english (default) and polish
Forum language: polish


When admin lang is set to polish i can`t save forum configuration (Options). "Error: Unable to update board config."

5 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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  • Registered: 2007-03-08
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Re: Multi-language problem

I have the same problem as that chineese language changes.
I added latvian and russian languages, and swithching between them is done, then it criples some fonts.

I understood advice which is given to "frozen_space", and in common.php I found where is that "iso", but I do not know to what change it in case of latvian and english.
Where should I look?
???

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  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

Edit both of them to use UTF-8

7 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

Edit both of them to use UTF-8
--------------
I did it to english common, to russian common and to latvian common.php.

It screwed everything...

I had lot of posts which was done under latvian with latvian fonts. Now it all (including interface) is cripled.
May be I should edit at all three files to that what was written in latvian common.php file: iso-8859-13  ?

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8 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

Is such thing that in english file is:

'lang_multibyte'        =>    false,


important?

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9 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

I edited all three common.php files to what was in latvian common.php (iso-8859-13), and it seems that it solved problem with english. Now in english language latvian fonts is shown right.
BUT with russian language become completely awful - nothing can be understood.

So now is only russian language problem. (When looking throug russian language, then latvian fonts which was written under latvian language, is completely cripled...)

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  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

The issue I believe is that there really isn't a good way to represent all the different characters except in UTF-8. What you would need to do is convert the charset of your posts to UTF-8 (since right now they're using iso-8859-13 characters)

11 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

What is meaning of:
'lang_multibyte'        =>    false,

Which I have false on english and latvian, but true for russian common.php?

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12 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

I changed to UTF-8, but it cripled not only my latvian fonts written in that iso-8859-13 , but interface too.
So I get like this:
Ievadi savu lietot??u un paroli

Lietot? (Member)

Lietot? aktivit? (Member active)

Re?tr?: 2007-03-08  (registred)

P?jais ieraksts: ?dien 00:31:42 (last post: today)

and so on. This is only profile page...

So it is not just question that I would correct what have been written in iso-8859-13.

What can be solution?

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13 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

Lietot? (Member)
--------
User, not member.

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  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

Ahmed wrote:

Lietot? (Member)
--------
User, not member.

That is a language file thing
And I'll say it again: you need to convert the contents of your posts to a charset (in this case UTF-8) that can display ALL the languages.

15 Reply by Ahmed (edited by Ahmed 2007-03-10 18:15)

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

Wen I am changing all three to (this means "convert charset"?):
'lang_encoding'            =>    'UTF-8',

Then I get
latvian:
http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/9809/latvianinterfacexs5.jpg


Russian with UTF-8 - just a white blank...

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  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

That changes the language information sent to the browser, not what's stored in the database.
For more information on that, see http://blog.punbb.org/2007/02/12/switching-to-utf-8/

17 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

//'lang_encoding'            =>    'windows-1251',
'lang_encoding'            =>    'UTF-8',
---------
So there is this (do not work).

I read that article, but did not understood how practicaly it helps me. Does this mean that I should rewrite what is russian common.php? (place UTF-8 and rewrite?)

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18 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

Now I downloaded russian utf-8 version here:
http://punbb.ru/downloads/punbb-1_2_14-russian-utf.zip

http://punbb.ru/viewtopic.php?id=1191

So that is solved. Seems that now it will be easy, cos only latvian non-utf8 left.

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19 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

I took common.php and opened ir with frontpage 2003.

Edited this:
'lang_encoding'            =>    'iso-8859-13',

to this:
'lang_encoding'            =>    'utf-8',


Then I started to rewrite latvian translation. Pressed CTR+S and saved as "Unicode(UTF-8). Did all document.
Saved again.
Then at at forum everything went even worse. So I checked that my work do not saves normalu but criples in other way..

What the problem?

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  • Smartys
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Re: Multi-language problem

Please take the time to read the blog post I linked to and understand that changing the LANGUAGE PACKS does not change the CONTENTS OF POSTS in your forum.

21 Reply by Ahmed

  • Ahmed
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Re: Multi-language problem

It all ended when I deleted my old forum and installed russian forum in which is english and russian utf-8.
Also server administrator did this:
@mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");

Well, may be after some time there will be clean latvian ut-8 language packs. For now it was too much trouble for me to start it again...

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