[vox] SquirrelMail on Linux with multi-Language support

[ME]

SM website is nice. They have a wiki. I added the process there so others
can contribute:
http://www.squirrelmail.org/wiki/en_US/SupportingMultipleLanguages

I was using the courier-imap debian package but it did not have support
for Japanese or other multi-byte asian symbolic character sets.

The mb options for PHP permit reading messages and searching through
messages. The gettext options permits use of locales to alter the SM menu
names so they are links written in the selected languages. (Makes language
selection kind of like a regional mod to user interface to SM.)

the unicode option in courier-imap just enables all of the character sets
that the courier source knows about.

This makes my users so much happier. :-D

-ME

dylan said:
> Thanks for the info!
>
> until the most recent version of squirrel mail, i had a bit of trouble
> getting it to handle japanese text. the lastest version made it quite
> simple.
>
> however, the info on recompiling PHP and courier (both of which i use for
> my
> servers) are quite interesting. i haven't noticed any problems receiving
> unicode text from my courier server (installed from a debian package), but
> i
> will try re-compiling it this summer.
>
> you are correct, though, there is little documentation on getting linux up
> to speed on multi-lingual text processing.
>
> Dylan
>
> on 03.6.17 4:09 PM, ME at dugan@passwall.com was reported to have writen:
>
>> keywords: language, squirrelmail, locales, multibyte, character set, SM
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I use SM for my domain, and I speak English. However, some of my users
>> are
>> from foreign countries. Kasakstahn, Taiwan, China, Japan, Bulgaria,
>> Denmark, Germany, etc. and their first languages were not English.
>>
>> As a result of wanting to get Japanese and Chinese Characters working in
>> messages so the end users need not alter their web browsers' character
>> set, I found a method for enabling users to define their own languages
>> to
>> be used with SM (SquirrelMail.)
>>
>> Procedure:
>> 1) Install all of he locales you plan to use or offer your users of
>> different languages. (I installed all of them just in case I get another
>> foreign user on my box.)
>>
>> In Debian 3.0:
>> # dpkg-reconfigure -plow locales
>>
>> 2) Install your web server. If you use a packaged web server that uses
>> modules, then --with-apxs=/path/to/apxs as an arg for the php build is
>> useful.
>>
>> 3) Why build your own php? many prepackaged php doe not include
>> multi-byte
>> character s-et support by default.
>>
>> When you build your own php-4.3.2 from source, include the options:
>> --enable-mbstring --enable-mbregex --with-gettext
>> Along with any other options you use with your php install.
>> (Suggested also include this, but not necessary for ML support AFAIK)
>> --with-pear and if your apache install uses apxs with modules then:
>> --with-apxs=/path/to/apxs
>> )
>>
>> 4) Why build courier-imap by hand? Many pre-packaged courier-imap
>> servers
>> do not come pre-build with full unicode support for all of the charsets
>> that courier-imap is capable of using.
>>
>> When you configure your courier you will want to add:
>> --enable-unicode
>> to any other config options you choose to use to enable all supported
>> multi-byte unicode charsets that courier-imap knows about (in src).
>>
>> 5) After all are installed, use of SM 1.4.x or later can permit users to
>> select languages for default composition and display of email messages.
>> ALSO, many of the menu names/items (Compose Addresses Folders Options
>> Search Help Calendar Fetch Directory) and links available from within a
>> SM
>> session are translated! Woot!
>>
>> I can see these link names in Japanese, Bulgarian, Danish, German,
>> Russian, and English! (Of course, I can't read them, but my users can!)
>> (Also, many more languages are supported.)
>>
>> This rocks!
>>
>> **NOTE: I had to set my default locale to "none" for consistent work.
>> **NOTE: not all plugins and buttons have had their words translated, but
>> most (if not all) core options are translated.
>> **NOTE: I have just started doing this, but due to a lack of docs on how
>> to make this work, some sort of info on how to do this might be useful
>> to
>> others out there.
>>
>> Thanks to irc.freenode.net 's #squirrelmail channel user:
>> valcor!valcor@netdork.net for suggesting the piece that I was missing:
>> locales for the specific langs I wanted to use other than English.
>>
>> -ME
>>
>>
>> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
>> Version: 3.12
>> GCS/CM/IT$/LS/S/O$ !d--(++) !s !a+++(-----) C++$(++++) U++++$(+$)
>> P+$>+++
>> L+++$(++) E W+++$(+) N+ o K w+$>++>+++ O-@ M+$ V-$>- !PS !PE Y+ PGP++
>> t@-(++) 5+@ X@ R- tv- b++ DI+++ D+ G--@ e+>++>++++ h(++)>+ r*>? z?
>> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
>> decode: http://www.ebb.org/ungeek/ about:
>> http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are
> evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
> -Albert Einstein
>
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