Thread: Troubles with the Translation Script

I am completely perplexed...

I have downloaded v2.16 and followed all of the steps.... and NOTHING...

I must admit, I am a web designer and the installation instructions are NOT crystal clear.

Some recommendations for the Installation procedure.
1) The ZIP files extracts all directories in the correct structure... so why not tell the user to upload the extracted directories to the root web directory of the server and not "rearrange" the exctracted directory structure? That eliminates a lot of explanations
2) Why keep the graphics in additional /separate ZIP files??? Why not just leave them as folders in the correct location in the directories and explain what they are?
3) The SHTML files need to be explained as to what they are... I am not sure why they are SHTML files and yet they have PHP code inside of it. A lot of servers dont' complie PHP code in HTML or SHTML files. Why not just tell people to copy/paste the code into their site files?
4) Why is your report.sh file written for HTML files as a default instead of PHP files? If you copy the code fromt he SHTML files, into a HTML file it will be useless becasue the PHP code won't be compiled...
5) Why are there no working examples that I can see? If you posted YOUR OWN site as an example, we could see that it works.. You could even post a comment on the site that gives updates to us all (such as... "hey... Google changed their translation script again... and v2.16 does not work"...)

I am having a problem with my code..

Here are the details that you asked for...
PLEASE HELP

* The URL of the site you are translating...
Beach Carousel Motel - Virginia Beach, VA (testing page)

* The URL to a copy of version.php running on your site (See the Troubleshooting Tips for a copy of this on-line program.)
phpinfo()

* Does the issue affect Google Translate, Yahoo Babelfish, or both?
Both

* What hosting company is your web site hosted at?
My own dedicated server. UNIX/FreeBSD

* Which version of the Translation Script are you running? (Look at the top of translate/translate.php)
2.16

* What version of Apache are you running? (1.3 or 2.x)
2.x

* Does your Apache configuration have mod_rewrite enabled?
Yes

* If you are calling the script from html files, is your Apache configured to support PHP code embedded in html files?
No

* Does your host support cURL?
Yes

* Is PHP safe_mode disabled on your host?
No

* What HTML/JavaScript/PHP/etc... code are you using to call the script?
What? My files are PHP files. Where in the instructions does it say that I need to "call the script"?

* What error messages are you seeing in your Apache server logs?
None... it's just not translating anything.

* What error messages are you seeing when you try to translate a page?
None... it's just not translating anything.

Originally Posted by quikned

1) The ZIP files extracts all directories in the correct structure... so why not tell the user to upload the extracted directories to the root web directory of the server and not "rearrange" the exctracted directory structure? That eliminates a lot of explanations

I've rewritten the documentation for 2.16b. It's posted now. I think you'll like what you see.

Originally Posted by quikned

2) Why keep the graphics in additional /separate ZIP files??? Why not just leave them as folders in the correct location in the directories and explain what they are?

The graphics are optional samples. They are not necessary. They are simply useful for some people who may chose to implement the script in that way.

But... unzipping them isn't a bad idea. I'll give that a try. I also moved them under the translate directory so they don't accidentally overwrite anything else on the website.

Of course, we provide two sets of sample graphics, so people will still need to make a choice as to which set they want to use on their web site.

Originally Posted by quikned

3) The SHTML files need to be explained as to what they are... I am not sure why they are SHTML files and yet they have PHP code inside of it. A lot of servers dont' complie PHP code in HTML or SHTML files. Why not just tell people to copy/paste the code into their site files?

Only a small portion of people use PHP files. Perhaps you could write a guide to implementing the translation script just for those people?

Originally Posted by quikned

4) Why is your report.sh file written for HTML files as a default instead of PHP files? If you copy the code fromt he SHTML files, into a HTML file it will be useless becasue the PHP code won't be compiled...

If I switched the default to PHP files, people who used HTML files would complain.

People who can't edit a text file are not the target users for this script.

Originally Posted by quikned

5) Why are there no working examples that I can see? If you posted YOUR OWN site as an example, we could see that it works..

Check Be a Private Investigator for a reference implementation.

Originally Posted by quikned

You could even post a comment on the site that gives updates to us all (such as... "hey... Google changed their translation script again... and v2.16 does not work"...)

That's what this forum is for.

Originally Posted by quikned

I am having a problem with my code.

Beach Carousel Motel - Virginia Beach, VA

If I go to this URL it indeed looks like the script is not being reached:

Code:

http://www.beachcarousel.com/lang/de/index_new.php

Thinking this through...

This means that lang/.htacess must be working.

It looks like translate/.htaccess does not exist or is not being called properly by Apache.

Also, did you edit your site_url into tr_config.php?

Originally Posted by quikned

What error messages are you seeing in your Apache server logs?
None... it's just not translating anything.

The script logs an enormous amount of data to the Apache logs. I would edit translate/tr_config.php to set $log_level to LOG_DEBUG just to make certain nothing is happening.

If nothing is being logged, then the script is not being reached.

Also in translate/tr_config.php, please set write_raw_content to true. That will keep some temporary files in your cache directory.

Finally, it is possible to enable enhanced mod_rewrite logging by placing the following lines in the Apache configuration for your vhost:

RewriteLog "location_where_you_want_the_rewrite_log_store d"
RewriteLogLevel 9

Then, please send me a few of those cache files and a good excerpt from your Apache logs and the rewrite logs.

Thanks man!

Hey Will,

I made the changes to the tr_config.php file and nothing really changed.

I have not made any changed to the Apache configuration concerning the ReWriteLog.... I'd like to wait on that.

My site is pretty simple.

I'm surprised when you say taht not many people have sites written in PHP.

I use PHP for ALL of my sites. Maybe I'm in the minority...

Anyway..

I have spent an enormous amount of tie tinkering with this script and trying to get it to work and it is tearing my hair out.

I have no problem paying you to take a look at it. I can provide all FTP login details as well as SSH.

Something that would probably take me 5 hours to find or recognize, might take you 5 minutes..

Please let me know..

I only work for beer.

But if you PM me the login details, I'll take a look.

Thanks for your comments on the documentation! I posted a major rewrite yesterday.

Update: The script is now working for quikned.

This looks to be a problem caused by a bad default setting in tr_config.php.

The fix was to change $use_lang_hostnames to false.

True is set if you use subdomains instead of subdirectories for translated paths.