FIXED ! Chinese in phpMyFAQ 2.6.11

[zoo0828]

Hello, Thorsten,

Many thanks for this excellent FAQ, believe it helps a lot of people including myself.

This is my first time installation of phpMyFAQ, latest version 2.6.11 used. The installation script worked flawlessly, all necessary database tables created and most of the functions so far are working perfectly.

Other than some tiny little problem, Chinese support is definitely a show-stopper for me. (we can use English just fine, but can't say never use Chinese)

What I found:
*** 1. all the Chinese inputed, no matter it's FAQ subject or content, will be displayed as ?????????
*** 2. when I switch the interface language, basically, between English and Chinese, the FAQ homepage displays different set of "popular FAQs", "latest FAQs", etc which means language setting makes some of the records unreadable.
3. all the tables created by installation script have a strange collation - latin1_swedish_ci, I have a server wide MySQL charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8).
4. I tried to change the collation to utf8_bin, gbk_chinese_ci, etc none works

Looking forward to your advise. For one, which collation should I use? utf8_bin? and of course, how to make the Chinese support working?

My system:
phpMyFAQ 2.6.11
Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu)
PHP 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.2
Register Globals off
Safe Mode off
Open Basedir off
MysqlDatabase Client Version
5.1.41
Database Server Version
5.1.41-3ubuntu12.3
MySQL charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)
Webserver Interface
APACHE2HANDLER
PHP Extensions
Core, date, ereg, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, bcmath, bz2, calendar, ctype, dba, dom, hash, fileinfo, filter, ftp, gettext, session, iconv, json, mbstring, SPL, standard, posix, Reflection, Phar, shmop, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, exif, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, wddx, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, zip, apache2handler, gd, mcrypt, mysql, mysqli, PDO, pdo_mysql, mhash

[Thorsten]

Hi,

utf8_bin is the correct one. Then it should work out of the box. I don't know why the tables were created with latin1...

bye
Thorsten

[zoo0828]

Hello, Thorsten,

Thanks for the prompt response, however, like I said, I changed all the collation and Chinese still displayed as ??????

Meanwhile, might be subsequent problem to that:
*** 2. when I switch the interface language, basically, between English and Chinese, the FAQ homepage displays different set of "popular FAQs", "latest FAQs", etc which means language setting makes some of the records unreadable.

Regards,

[zoo0828]

Just found out that phpMyFAQ only display FAQs according to their language settings, it's not a bug.

THEN THE MOST CRITICAL PROBLEM IS HOW TO MAKE IT SUPPORT CHINESE.

[Thorsten]

Hi,

phpMyFAQ support Chinese!

An example: http://www.qhfaq.com/

Or mixed with different languages from one of my test installations:

Bildschirmfoto 2010-11-11 um 21.09.03.png

bye
Thorsten

[zoo0828]

Hi, Thorsten,

Sorry that I didn't make myself clear, I understand perfectly that phpMyFAQ support Chinese, what I am seeking now is how I can fix my system, maybe you can take a look at my systm at http://www.logicalis.co.tv/faq/

Please help.

Hi,

phpMyFAQ support Chinese!

An example: http://www.qhfaq.com/

Or mixed with different languages from one of my test installations:

Bildschirmfoto 2010-11-11 um 21.09.03.png

bye
Thorsten

[Thorsten]

Hi,

could you please give me access to your version of phpMyFAQ? Please send me a PM.

bye
Thorsten

[zoo0828]

I have set all the system variables to utf8 as below, but unfortunately, the problem stays...

For the ubuntu server running phpMyFAQ, do I need mysql-client? if not, should I remove all mysql-client related packages?

character_set_client utf8
character_set_connection utf8
character_set_database utf8
character_set_filesystem binary
character_set_results utf8
character_set_server utf8
character_set_system utf8
collation_connection utf8_general_ci
collation_database utf8_general_ci
collation_server utf8_general_ci

[zoo0828]

Fixed the problem by drop the database and re-installed phpMyFAQ (of course after set the character_set to utf8.)

Thanks for everything.

[Thorsten]

Hi,

okay... good news, but strange problem.

bye
Thorsten

[zoo0828]

Yes, good news indeed.

But I think it made senses, because all the tables were created with latin collation, even later on I changed them but still something inside the mySQL database remained which caused the problem.

Therefore, would recommend to add a few words into your document, simply indicates that:

2.c. Install-Script

Open your browser and type in the following URL:

http://www.example.com/faq/install/setup.php
Substitute www.example.com with your actual domain name. When the site is loaded enter the address of your database server (e.g. db.provider.com), your database username and password as well as the database name. The database must be available and created with collation or character_set =utf8 before running the installation script.

Hi,

okay... good news, but strange problem.

bye
Thorsten

[Thorsten]

Hi,

I'll add a hint to the documentation!

bye
Thorsten

[zoo0828]

Hi, Thorsten,

Seriously, along the years I have been enjoying the open-source community, you are the most active developer/maintainer of an open-source project.

Meanwhile, after gone through the documentation a couple of times, it probably could use a few clarifications / hints for absolute beginners like myself, would be easier if we can establish a wiki style documentation so that people around can unleash the real power of the community, believe there are so many phpMyFAQ users would love to contribute even a tiny bit of effort.

Best wishes and keep it up - phpMyFAQ !

[Thorsten]

Hi,

Seriously, along the years I have been enjoying the open-source community, you are the most active developer/maintainer of an open-source project.

thank you very much.

Meanwhile, after gone through the documentation a couple of times, it probably could use a few clarifications / hints for absolute beginners like myself, would be easier if we can establish a wiki style documentation so that people around can unleash the real power of the community, believe there are so many phpMyFAQ users would love to contribute even a tiny bit of effort.

Currently I'm thinking about moving the bug forum to the github issue tracker. It would be possible to use the wiki, too. I think about it.

bye
Thorsten