Characterset Question

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rexx
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Characterset Question

Post by rexx »

I would like my 'English-only' board to be able to also properly display Russian, Chinese, and the like characters.

Yet, I cannot find a way to do this.

Long ago, I asked the phpbb's Russian translator, for instruction, but received no reply.

The Language Packs seem aimed at converting the entire language, of a board, say, from English to something else - which is not what I want.

Instead, I want my 'English-only' board to be able to handle/display all multinational characters.

Is that possible?

- rexx :|
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Dog Cow
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by Dog Cow »

Yes, it is possible.

You have to convert your tables and possibly the columns where the post text is entered, to the UTF-8 character set.

But there's also a critical change you must make as well. In language/lang_english/lang_main.php right near the top of that file is a $lang['ENCODING'] = 'iso-658991 someting';

you must change that to say $lang['ENCODING'] = 'UTF-8';

then check to make sure that your browser is receiving the page in the UTF-8 character set. There's some menu in your browser, probably the View menu, that has character encoding and after making that change you should see that UTF-8 has a checkmark next to it.
rexx
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by rexx »

My browser (firefox) is set to show Russian characters.

Yet, when I changed "$lang['ENCODING'] = 'iso-8859-1';" to "$lang['ENCODING'] = ''UTF-8'';" I got lots of question marks (which, I think still represents a big improvement) where I suspect Russian characters should be.

These question marks are showing up, in, what I think, are actually Russian postings.

In addition to making that "UTF-8" change, above, you mentioned that I would also have to make a similar change to my tables and, perhaps, columns.

Any thoughts on how to do this?

- rexx :|
rexx
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by rexx »

It worked!

For the first time, I finally found Russian characters being properly-displayed, at Russian postings, on my site.

Hopefully, now, Chinese plus all other non-english characters will also be properly-displayed.

Many thanks!

- rexx :D
Last edited by rexx on Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dog Cow
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by Dog Cow »

You're welcome!

There's another test you can do as well. If you have any visitors which use the Apple Macintosh computer, ask them to make a post and press Shift-Option-K to produce a small Apple logo. On PCs, that will look like a ?. But on Macs, it will appear properly and will show that the UTF-8 conversion is working.
koprivaqi
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by koprivaqi »

Hi I have problems with characters in my forum to, the swedish leters Å,Ä and Ö is apearing in triangles, and by going to Menu Bar--> Vew+Encoding than choosen Western European(ISO) everything whas fixed, before changing to Western European(ISO) the browser was pointing to Unicode(UTF-8).. And when I relode tha page, the Encoding goes back to Unicode(UTF-8) and my forum is back again in triangles, please anyone help me fix this problem.
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Lumpy Burgertushie
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

koprivaqi wrote:Hi I have problems with characters in my forum to, the swedish leters Å,Ä and Ö is apearing in triangles, and by going to Menu Bar--> Vew+Encoding than choosen Western European(ISO) everything whas fixed, before changing to Western European(ISO) the browser was pointing to Unicode(UTF-8).. And when I relode tha page, the Encoding goes back to Unicode(UTF-8) and my forum is back again in triangles, please anyone help me fix this problem.
from what you describe that you are doing, all you are changing is your browser settings. that has nothing to do with your board.

follow the instructions in this topic and change the settings on your board as well.


roberrt
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koprivaqi
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Re: Characterset Question

Post by koprivaqi »

from what you describe that you are doing, all you are changing is your browser settings. that has nothing to do with your board.

follow the instructions in this topic and change the settings on your board as well.

roberrt
What shall I change it to, in the file language/lang_swedish/lang_main.php I have changed from $lang['ENCODING'] = 'ISO-8859-1'; to $lang['ENCODING'] = 'UTF-8';
Last edited by Jim_UK on Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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