Hi,<br />first of all: thank you all so much for sharing your wonderful hacks with us. Yes, there are sometimes no comments at all to a hack and this could be found discouraging at first sight. (I also have hacks here that never got even a single response, or just what looks like complaints. But then I saw the Download rates and other indications and then it was allright.<br /><br />There is at least one big advantage: it keeps the threads clear for input that really adds to the hack (bug reports, suggestions) and I start appreciating that. - I myself also stopped writing the "yes I like it"-threads for that reason, although I am so extremely happy with many of them. So here comes my THANK YOU again to all of you.<br /><br /><br />One general suggestion for a standartization I want to to come up with: Language Files.<br />Standartization can be something very useful. Ther Hack-description standards are such a case and are helpful for us all.<br /><br />Language files are one of the coolest features of Threads, and was at least for me THE main reason to switch to Threads some years ago.<br />I wished that hacks would also use Language-Files more often. Only English forums may have the luxury to offer only one language. So all international forums have to add language hacks to the original hacks, to make them compatible. That is lots of extra work, and errors come quickly it the original hack got updated, which can be often sometimes. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />On the other hand I think it would be not so much extra work for a hack-writer to build Language code in right from the beginning. Many of us users would be very happy with this. (It would be fine, just to distribute the code for the English language file, translations should be no problem for the end user.)<br />

I agree an all accounts.<br /><br />Language strings in all hacks would be very nice.

Yes agree as well. I kinda got in the habit when I installed hacks that had English language strings to also translate into the others as well and add it there.

Language is something that my next wave over versions will probably have. We are trying to support English and French on our forums, and I've hacked our UBB.threads to pieces for our purposes compared to the stuff I've posted here, and thus my more custom work has slowly had language files added. It makes for some more complex hack-tracking though.

[]It makes for some more complex hack-tracking though. [/]<br />My strategy would be like this:<br />I add either a PHP-Comment or a html-comment ( for language files) to every place the hack adds something. Every comment has the word "HACK" and the Name of the hack.<br />Benefits:<br />*You can search sitewide for all occurrences of the hack, searching by its name, in case you want to delete or update it.<br />* If a page makes problem, search for HACK and you can identify the spots where the changes are and maybe the problems come from.<br />* It is easy to update Threads, because foreign pieces of code can be identified easily. (If I hack original Threads code out, I leave it in as comment, as well. So if the original code has some new elements, it is easy to compare and find out what has changed and what might be needed also for the hacked code.)<br /><br />My 2 cents

I agree. Updating language files and so on is very needed. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /><br />There are so many hacks around that updating language files for each hack can be much work... so I wonder... Would it be possible to come up with a standard "addon.php" language file for every language? <br />For example, in all pages UBBThreads would check for the language file in question (example "newpost.php") AND the addon.php just as it now does with "generic.php" (I believe).<br />This would mean that instead of having to mess with all language files you would only mess with "addon.php" and just add things there, resulting in less work.<br /><br />What do you think? <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, but you'd probably have to modify every script to included addon.php.... maybe that can be done in ubbt.inc.php.<br /><br />Or you could simply add a hack section to the bottom of the generic.php file, and add them all there. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />Some of my hacks I've been good and used language files. I only include the english of course, but if someone needed another language, they could translate. <br /><br />I'll focus more on future hacks supporting language files. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Does this mean we will get British spellings rather than US <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

He he... if I do the spelling.... it's probably wrong anyway. LOL

[]Does this mean we will get British spellings rather than US <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> [/]<br />Gosh! Please no! I have already a problem being Greek, raised in Greece, having learned American English and living in London where everyone takes the mickey out of me because I spell behavior and not behaviour... :P<br /><br />Warm regards<br /><br />Nikos

hmmmm <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />Why should we not have an English version - the French have their version, the Germans have their version - but we have to translate each dictionary to correct it. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> It is not just the missing 'u's - we use a rubbish bin , and not trash - we tick boxes not check them etc.... <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />It might seem minor - but then it is the same with the dates - currently there is no method for us to correct the dates on a viewer level - all the dates I view here are 'incorrect' to us 2/11/03 is the 2nd November.<br /><br />I can set it board wide - so any Americans visiting my board will see 11/2/03, which to them is wrong - but they ike us, should be able to adjust it in the display settings.<br /><br />Okay patriotic moan over <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /><br /><br /><br />

then you have Canadian which is a combination of Brit & American <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /><br /><br />

On the subject that Carl mentions here, I would like to add that for those of you that have added the hellenic language files in your distributions and have installed alongside other modifications that use language files, please post a reminder in the relevant modification and I will attach the hellenic language strings.

Actually, my current tracking method is to place<br /><br />// |***<br /><br />at the start of a hack<br /><br />// ***|<br /><br />at the end of one, and // *** for the one-liners or mid-line hacks.<br /><br />it's easy to type *** in a find field, and I've never seen it used for anything else.

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