MLP - The Multi-Lingual Publishing Pack

net-carver · 2007-01-19 02:12:53

Important notice:

The plugin can now be found here: github.com/Bloke/MLP. And if you are running the pack on Txp 4.5.x you will need to follow these instructions.

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Previously:
This plugin was adopted by graeme et al (and, more recently, kept up-to-date and improved by Bloke). Don’t use the download link below, ~~but get the latest version mlp-4.5.2.20121204.zip, adapted for 4.5.0 and later.~~

This thread is still open for support questions.

Original plugin announcement follows below:

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~~Here’s the~~ ~~download link~~ (see above)
Here’s the homepage.

Here’s the latest information about pack development.

About The MLP Pack

Whilst the Pack’s predecessor (gbp_l10n v0.5) was a plugin solution, the MLP Pack is not a pure plugin.

It is too big to fit into the plugin size limit. It could have been split into multiple component plugins but instead we split it into several component files plus a plugin.

The Pack uses an altered version of the file txplib_db.php to store and serve localised content to textpattern and other plugins that use the DB layer instead of going direct to the underlying tables.

I have already published a document called Making Your Plugins MLP Compatible that deals with leveraging the MLP Pack features in your plugins.

Admin Features

Each TxP user can choose their own admin language — and switch between admin languages at will.
Localisation of plugin strings via the admin interface (at last, no editing of source files!)
Ability to search for, and edit, any TxP language string by name or by content — in any of the languages supported by the site.
Ability to quickly locate strings with missing renditions in any language.
New: String searches can be limited to strings available on the public interface (stops you selecting admin-only strings for display on the public side of your site.)
Support for ‘snippets’ to simplify page/form editing and writing or for localisation of tag attributes.
String editor can operate in RTL or LTR mode (JS to toggle between the two.)
Write tab now allows title/body/excerpt and preview in RTL as well as LTR mode.
Import/export of your plugin strings or snippets so you can upload to live sites or share with others.
Export of TxP strings using the TxP language file format for distribution to other/devs.
Export of the MLP Pack strings in its own file format for you to bundle into your client’s MLP distribution.
Support for articles as groups of renditions.
Support for cloning of renditions and their translation into other languages using the existing write tab.
New: Support for cloning a rendition by its ID. (Useful for heavily populated sites.)
Email notifications sent to translators when articles are cloned or have their author changed.
Extra filtering of the list of renditions by language.
No hijacking of existing fields (sections/categories/custom fields) to store language information, so you are free to use the all existing fields as you need to.
Full localisation of the following fields…
- Category titles
- Section titles
- Image alt text and captions
- Link descriptions
- File descriptions
Setup and Cleanup wizards.

Most of these features can be seen demonstrated in the movie.

Public Features

Detection of the language the user wants to view a site in via the url or browser headers.
URLs re-written so that browser caches know the difference between the renditions of articles in different languages.
Automatic selection of the correct renditions of snippets in pages and forms.
Fully functional search/commenting/feeds for each language the site supports.
Feeds are also adjusted for RTL languages.
Localised categories, sections, file & link descriptions, image alt text & captions.
404 support for finding renditions that are not available in the requested language.
A tag to list all available renditions of a given article and allow switching between them (works in article lists or individual articles.)
Tags for accessing language codes and direction information.
Conditional tag for testing the visitors’ browse languages or the directionality of the languages.

Most of the public features can be seen live on the demo site.

Feature lists etc…

MLP Non-Starters records ideas for MLP features that I don’t plan implementing or that can already be easily achieved.

Credits.

Marios Buttner for his initial ideas, support, feedback, testing and translation.
Graeme Porteous for the gbp_l10n plugin, the gbp_admin_library and help in the first few months of development.
Destry Wion for pledging support early on.
Team Textpattern for, err, Textpattern.

Ransom Details.

The ransom target was collected in 16 days and 101.39% of the target of 360 pounds sterling was donated.

The following people/organisations donated to the ransom, helping to bring the MLP Pack to the whole community (many thanks to them all!)…

NeMe
“Jakob”
“woof”
Luke Chambers of Flickerbox
Jelle van der Heijde
Christian Nolle
“sbonzix”
…and 5 other donors

Last edited by els (2014-03-08 22:35:41)

fbox · 2007-01-19 02:59:45

Great work, Steve!

Good to see the ransom up and happening at last. Time for us to show how appreciative we are and pitch in generously. =)

lee · 2007-01-21 12:04:20

If I donate 20 now would it be possible to have a cop straight away? I get the feeling it may take a long time. if at all, to reach the target because i think this kind of plugin only has a small market.

net-carver · 2007-01-22 00:58:41

Lee

Firstly, thanks for your willingness to donate such a large amount!

I have already had people contact me asking that I release the pack to them (some even wanting it free of charge) before either the target or deadline is reached. However, I have to refuse early release.

I do appreciate your concerns about the initial amount that has been donated and the time it might take — probably more than anyone else — but I will be sticking by this.

There is a reason for adopting this policy of no early release: as this work is necessarily under the GNU GPL which expressly forbids additional terms or restrictions that mght limit your freedom to use, modify or redistribute this software; any early release — even to those paying the (eventual) sale price up-front — could immediately invalidate the whole effort if it were made available by any recipient during the ransom period.

Now I’m not saying I think you would redistribute the pack but if I let one person have the pack on the terms you are asking for, I’d have to let anyone have the pack on those terms — and then the above scenario becomes much more likely.

Once again many thanks!

Last edited by net-carver (2007-01-22 01:17:43)

FireFusion · 2007-01-23 07:50:26

A few questions…

Does it need a fresh TXP install? If not is it easy to install on an existing site?
Will we have to wait for the pack to be updated before updating TXP in the future?
If it won’t be updated in the future how much of the core TXP code has been changed, is it a manageable amount?

Thanks for making this plugin net-carver.

net-carver · 2007-01-23 08:35:56

FireFusion

Does it need a fresh TXP install? If not is it easy to install on an existing site?

You can install this into existing sites (back them up first!) but as there are so many possibilities for custom schemes for denoting article language, the pack will not know how to map existing articles to languages. You can get around this in two ways…

Post-install manual editing. By default, all articles without a known language marker are entered into the articles table as if they were renditions in the default site language. These can all be manually edited post install but for a large site that may be problematic.
Let me know your site’s specific schema for representing languages and I’ll either provide information to help you write a custom import routine or we can negotiate to get one written for you. —Edit— If the site you are installing the Pack into is currently only in one language and you want to use the pack to provide the other languages then there is no problem: no post-install editing will be needed.

Will we have to wait for the pack to be updated before updating TXP in the future?

Yes, there would probably be a lag between new TxP releases and the availability of MLP updates that match it.

There are a few areas where the pack relies on specific TxP version information to get things right. For example, when it inserts elements into existing tabs, it relies upon certain layout specifics of the page it’s trying to insert into.

Also, as it uses an updated version of the DB layer to serve localised content, then as the DB layer in TxP is developed, the MLP pack DB replacement layer will need updates to keep in step (unless the TxP revision makes no changes in this area.)

If it won’t be updated in the future how much of the core TXP code has been changed, is it a manageable amount?

One file is changed: txplib_db.php .

Thanks for making this plugin net-carver.

You’re welcome, but please note — it isn’t a pure plugin (as mentioned in the head post) — it’s an extension pack, including some additional php files and two png graphics.

Last edited by net-carver (2007-01-23 13:23:46)

net-carver · 2007-02-03 02:50:41

All

Ransom target has been donated or pledged so the MLP Pack is now available for download.

Many thanks to everyone who donated — they are the ones who are making this work available to all.

net-carver · 2007-02-03 04:21:00

All

The release of the pack has coincided with my family’s travel plans (we are off to the UK) and I will be un-available to answer your posts until at least Tuesday next week (6th Feb).

Please feel free to post any issues or comments here and I’ll play catch-up as soon as I can.

Last edited by net-carver (2007-02-03 04:21:44)

FireFusion · 2007-02-03 08:40:41

Wow, thanks net-carver and everyone else.

zaharia · 2007-02-03 18:29:05

Thanks so much net-carver! This will be a great help to me.

Some initial problems though. When I ran the wizzard, I got a series of error messages at the top of the page, like this one:

Se ha producido un error al cargar el plugin l10n -> Notice: Undefined index: categoria on line 4618

My site runs in Spanish – the first part their translates to “An error has been produced while loading plugin…” and the rest comes from MLP in English. “categoria” is one of my pages, the error repeats for just about every page I have.

Then, if I hit “continue”, everything seems to be going fine till I try to go to the snippits page, which produces this error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: preload() in [site_page]/textpattern/lib/l10n_admin_classes.php on line 1774

Finally, when I just try to go to my site, it redirects to /en and gives me a 404 error.

I have a feeling that last one is some problem with .htaccess, haven’t yet tried to fix it. But I have no idea what the first two mean. I haven’t had any real problems with this TxP installation before.

Thanks again…

Last edited by zaharia (2007-02-03 18:30:22)

net-carver · 2007-02-04 06:47:08

zaharia

Thanks for the report. I’m waiting to go to the airport now so I’ll think about this on the plane, the preload function is found in several classes used by the plugin so it might be possible that you missed copying something in the install (but then again…)

Could you just confirm several things…

Are you trying on a TxP 4.0.4 installation? (TxP 4.0.3 is not supported)
That you installed Graeme’s gbp_admin_library and enabled it
That all of the mandatory files were copied into the /lib directory.
That the permissions on the files you copied over match the permissions of the existing TxP files

I should be able to do more work on this later in the week — sorry for the inconvenient timing!

fuls · 2007-02-04 14:08:47

First I want to thank you for this great TXP mod, but

I’m having exactly the same errors like Zaharia and I can confirm all things from 1-4.

I’m also getting this error when I open my site:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare zem_contact_gtxt() (previously declared in …/textpattern/lib/txplib_misc.php(512) : eval()’d code:2) in …/textpattern/lib/txplib_misc.php(512) : eval()’d code on line 75

and this one when I click on Snippets:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: preload() in …/textpattern/lib/l10n_admin_classes.php on line 1774

Thank you in advance for your help.

Last edited by fuls (2007-02-04 16:32:24)

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