phpBB Username charset issue in bridged mode

[angeld]

Coppermine install: http://www.bgaudioclub.org/gallery
Coppermine version: cpg1.4.22
Forum version: phpBB v2.0.19
Test user account: maia / 1111

BridgeManager settings:
Forum URL:    http://www.bgaudioclub.org/forum
Relative path to your BBS's config file:    ../forum/
Use post-based groups?:    1
Cookie prefix:    phpbb2mysql


Bridging works fine now, thanks to Nibbler!
http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php/topic,59405.msg293102.html#msg293102

The <last> problem: some of our forum users have their nicknames in Cyrillic. The default encoding in the forum and the database is Windows-1251, and it does not appear on the list of options in Coppermine. As a result, nicks are misread and names appear as <?>'s. All functions, however, appear to work normally despite this.

Couldn't find relevant help in the documentation, nor the forum...

[angeld]

One more issue: when 'Bulgarian' is selected in CPG, all text on screen looks fine, but when I copy the lang file to my local drive (FTP) for editing the translation, characters are encoded incorrectly and I get a file full of garbage. Maybe this issue is linked to the above?

[Joachim Müller]

Different encodings will result in errors. Proprietary Windows-1251 is not recommended - I'm pretty sure that you can convert your forum app to use Unicode as well. This would solve your issues.

One more issue: when 'Bulgarian' is selected in CPG, all text on screen looks fine, but when I copy the lang file to my local drive (FTP) for editing the translation, characters are encoded incorrectly and I get a file full of garbage. Maybe this issue is linked to the above?

Make sure that you're using an editor that is capable to work with utf-8. Take a look at the tools recommended by the devs.

[angeld]

Thanks, Joachim, I appreciate your effort to respond to my questions.

Actually, Windows-1251 is the de-facto standard for Bulgarian web pages, and I'd really appreciate a hint how to add it to the existing list of optoions in gpg and make cpg compatible with the forum, not vice-versa. Same goes for editing: I use FireFTP and Wordpad, which works fine for everything else, except cpg...

As a side note, when I had to change the cookie path in order to bridge cpg to the forum, that created a wave of chaos: many users had trouble logging in until they cleared the private data in their browsers, and most of them are NOT programming experts, just plan users. A conversion of the charset of the forum looks like a VERY dangerous exercise to me, and I would not risk crashing. It has been up for almost 3 years, over 3,000 registered users and >100,000 posts, so you understand, I hope.

Please don't misunderstand me: you probably did the "right thing", selecting UTF-8, but your suggestion sounds like an attempt at swimming against the tide.

So, is there a way to add Windows-1251 to the list? See attachment.

[Nibbler]

If you really want to do it that way select the 'language file' option, set the $lang_charset to windows-1251 in the Bulgarian language file and convert the language file itself to windows-1251. Then delete all the other language files.

[angeld]

OK, done that, it works! Thanks again, Nibbler! 

So, finally, where does CPG keep this list of available chrsets, as per the attached screenshot?
My issue has been resolved, I'd just like to know.

Thanks again, guys!

[Nibbler]

It's just coded into admin.php

[kromnaios]

I have a similar problem. The encoding in the forum, the Coppermine and their databases is UTF-8. Some names in forum are in Greek and in Coppermine looks like ?. Also many custom groups are in Greek and have the same problem. What can i do?

Coppermine version: cpg 1.4.24
Forum version: phpbb 3.0.5

[Joachim Müller]

And locking. Start a thread of your own, doing as suggested in the sticky and as per board rules.