Joomla! Forum - community, help and support

This is the discussion thread for the Forum Post Assistant / FPA.
Please post any discussion and/or any issues you have about the FPA in this topic.

Note: Please remove the script from your website or otherwise change the name once the script has generated the Site Data and the message has been prepared and posted to the forum. This is so outsiders can't take a look at how your site is structured and possibly utilize any flaws that may be present.

the 1.5/6 version instructions are here http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=432&t=586336
the 1.7 version is here http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 3#p2371873

NOTE the 1.7 version while operational is much more advanced in the back end than 1.5 and is still undergoing fine tuning.

Ok, so how do I translate it? Do I copy the fpa-en.php to fpa-fi.php and translate the keys directly there or do I form some sort of ini-languagefile for it?

Do I copy the fpa-en.php to fpa-fi.php and translate the keys directly there

i think so at this stage

If you want to wait a little while for an answer back before doing anything, I have asked RussW to explain how he has intended the language translations to be handled. I know he did design for translations.

Either Russ or I will post the answer here.

Russ will also create the proper directory for you in the repository, or I can do it if necessary.

Thanks, alikon and PhilD, I've tried translating it straight to the fpa-en.php. I ended up translating only the part that opens when you click "Show the Forum Post Assistant". We're discussing using the FPA on a Finnish Joomla forum currently under migration. Since many users don't understand what FPA tells them regardless if its in Finnish or English it's efficient to translate only that part. Also, if it was all translated that could mean FPA generated posts in Finnish to international English forums. Of course the documentation needs to be translated also.

@Tero Kankaanperä
If you want the docs in odt format (Open Office) for translation they are here
https://github.com/ForumPostAssistant/F ... umentation

That's easier than trying to redo a pdf and is why I put the odt document there. Especially since it is easy to export to pdf from OO Writer when done.

Questions, trouble, or you would rather I handle the GIT transactions for you, let me know by PM.

Translating FPA into other languages for use in non English forums is one of the goals of the project as the FPA is very useful for postings other than security posts.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Russ and should have more info when I do.

A few notes from the translation and testing:

1. The documentation file suggests a structure of independent language files for translation.

2. Not everything is translatable (hard coded) and as usual the Finnish language gives us a bit of trouble. Can't remember exactly where, but the general problem is that the same tag is used in two places where it works for English but where you'd need to use a different declension (/inflection/conjugation) or even a word in Finnish because of the context. Also the extremly short form of the labels takes the translation beyond my translation skills.

3. Tried my translation on a forum and noted that the BB-codes for size-attributes end tag and the quote-tag in the problem description (at least) are crossed so they don't work. Size should be closed before quote is.

When will the link under forum rules be updated? The one in the J1.7 forums points to a none working version for J1.7

@Per Yngve Berg
I have requested a general mod make the change to the proper page as I don't have that power. Thanks for pointing that out.

@Tero Kankaanperä

1. The documentation file suggests a structure of independent language files for translation.

I handled the majority of docs and the language structure is still somewhat preliminary.

I have not yet heard back from RussW about the intended language translation structure, but I have placed your notes (numbers 2 and 3) in the issues tracker for FPA. Can you give me the tag name(s) that is/are giving trouble so I can include it in the issue?

Again, thanks for attempting to work on the language translation. Maybe Finnish is a good first language to translate.

@Per Yngve Berg
The link under the forum rules now points to the new FPA page.

Swapped the [/quote][/size] tags around so they are [/size][/quote] order in lines
3250, 3252,3254,3255,3257. This should be the correct closing order for tags in those lines. Other lines that contained [/quote] appear to be closed correctly.

Updated version can be downloaded by following links in the FPA page
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860

Here are a few updates.

Language:

The intent of the project is to provide a single script that can be uploaded to a users Joomla installation or domain (will work without Joomla to give server environment info) in order to provide the simplest install possible for non technical users who may have limited experience uploading and installing files.

This was why it was decided at this time to not have a separate language file.

Most (but maybe not all) of the language strings have been defined at the top of the file for the purpose to make it easier to convert the FPA script into different languages.

The drawback of this method for the translators/maintainers is any new versions of FPA will need to have the translated strings copied over from the older version, possibly some new strings translated. So while this method makes it more of a pain for us to maintain, it makes it easier for end users to install.

The other option that was considered, is to provide separate language files. This makes it more complicated for a user to install as they would need to also upload an additional language file. This makes it much easier for the translators/maintainers, but can make it harder for inexperienced persons as they now need to upload 2 files (at least for translations).

Along these lines a recent suggestion was made to use the method similar to what Nicholas Dionysopouloses uses on Akeeba Kickstart. There is a default English language within the file in case no external language files can be found and separate language ini files (including English) for the translations. The file (kickstart.php) attempts to look at the browser and load the language file that matches the browser language if possible/available.

Other Suggestions:
A suggestion was made to investigate the possibility of using something other than quote tags in generated output as it seems quote tags break in some cases (If I understand correctly) when using other forums.

.....for Kunena, the choice to use quote for the forum formating is producing "wrote" to some places on the rendered code on forums. There should be a better way to do this.

I don't know at this point if this would be a specific issue, bug in the Kunena forum software or if there is another way of handling this. If anyone has suggestions let's hear them.

There is now a Finnish Translation available for download
Direct download links:

https://github.com/ForumPostAssistant/FPA/tarball/fi-FI
or
https://github.com/ForumPostAssistant/FPA/zipball/fi-FI

Translations for the FPA are being handled at: https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/fpa/
Those persons interested in translating the FPA to another language should work through the FPA project on transifex.

Thanks to elkuku for setting up the project on transifex and for making this possible.

I've translated FPA again in Transifex. Where and when do I get the resulting translated FPA?

BTW: Have you noticed the Kunenas new "confidential" BB-tag?

The multilanguage version of FPA is a rewrite of some code and currently a work in progress so there is no official download from GitHub yet.

The documentation mentions older versions but can I run the FPA on
J2.5
PHP5?
(apologies if I missed it in the docs)

Compatibility:
PHP 4.1, PHP4, 5, 6DEV
MySQL 3.2 - 5.5
MySQLi from 4.1 ( @ >=PHP 4.4.9)

It will also work fine on Joomla 2.5.xx

I'll make a change on the forum pages to reflect the J2.5

Phil,

Thanks for that. Could you also give a rough idea of the maximum runtime in the documentation? I left it for about half an hour but it did not say it had completed (see attached). Not sure whether I should have left it for longer.

Regards

Geoff

That is the normal look and it has completed the scan. If it had failed you probably would have gotten something like this:

Forum Post Assistant
Generating Post Output...
v1.2.0-Beta (playGround-en-GB)

If you wish to post the results then click on "Show the Forum Post Assistant" to open the forum assistant. Once opened, fill in any Optional Information desired and Check any desired Run Time Options asked for or desired such as "Show elevated folder permissions"
Click the "Click here to generate post" button and a textbox will appear with the generated BBCode. Place your cursor within the text box, then Ctrl-A to select all code within the text box and then do a Ctrl-C copy the selection. Then all you have to do is do a Ctrl-V to paste the copied info into a forum posting. All the info is formatted for you so you do not have to worry about any formatting codes.

in http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860 download link is just for en-GB. Can we know link for other languages?
thanks.

Hi

Can anyone tell me why i am stuck on

Forum Post Assistant

Hang on in there while we run some tests...

Thanks

@OOmNezar

There is a multilanguage (thank you elkuku) version being worked on that is similar to the fpa-en.php script. I would consider the script alpha or pre-alpha at this point. It works well enough that it can be used and give results, but there are still some errors in the code as the code has been partially rewritten to accommodate selections of different languages and to work properly with the build scripts. The errors and extra code should not create any real concern.

The branch is not currently setup for download without getting a bunch of other stuff such as the build scripts. I could rearrange the github repository some to make the script and the docs available (similar to what you get when you download the fpa-en script)

The languages it currently covers (at least partially) are:
en-GB, be-BY, de-DE, es-ES, fi-FI, hu-HU, id-ID, it-IT, pl-PL, pt-BR
The desired language is selected at the top by clicking on the language title which will change the displayed output to that language. Otherwise it is very similar in operation to the fpa-en script

@revjono

This is the normal look for the top of the page:

Forum Post Assistant
Hang on in there while we run some tests...
v1.2.0-Beta (playGround-en-GB)

If the script did not run for some reason you will probably see what I posted earlier:

PhilD wrote:If it (the script) had failed to run you probably would have gotten something like this and no output on the page:

Forum Post Assistant
Generating Post Output...
v1.2.0-Beta (playGround-en-GB)

Hi @PhilD

Thanks for getting back to me.

I have had this on my screen for the last 3 hours and nothing changed.

Forum Post Assistant
Hang on in there while we run some tests...
v1.2.0-Beta (playGround-en-GB)

Any help on this !!!

let me try and explain,
1. the message "Hang on in there while we run some tests..." will not change after the tests are completed. seeing the results mean the test is completed.
2. click the bit marked "Show the Forum Post Assistant" and it will expand
3. follow the instructions "Click the Generate post button to build the post content"
4. copy the output field and paste into a post

Thanks for getting back but can not see the bit marked "Show the Forum Post Assistant" and it will expand

[*]redacted image not longer hosted

Is all I see!!

Turn on the scripts diagnostic mode.
Download and Open the fpa-en.php script in a text editor and at about line 18 find this line: change the line to: Then save the file and upload it back.
Run the script again and tell us what the results are, or post a screenshot.

Hi

I change the line to above still not working!!

Jono