Plugin Author
Ajay
(@ajay)
I’m not really sure what the solution to this could be. Do the search results work fine and display the characters better?
So here is the scenario:
I do not have any translation plugins. It is simple wordpress website with articles/menu etc in Chinese. I tried both “English version” and “Chinense Version” of wordpress – situation is the same.
If you type in “wordpress generic search” e.g. “越久” it will not display anything. I tried other custom search engines for wordpress and they heavily rely on classic abcd with focus on entire words and spaces between them.
In Asian languages like Chinese there is no spaces between words so the search has to be specifically based on characters only. The logic and meaning – is not really needed.
So your plugin i think is the only one that I am aware of, that works on characters not words except google search engine.
——————————-The problem ———————————
If I search for “越久” it will display the results accordingly. But in the “heath map”, most common searches widget and admin dashboard “daily searches” this word will not be recognized. Simply Chinese characters will be replaced by “?? ??”. Screen shot:
https://s3.postimg.org/eq24bddhf/image.jpg
So Im guessing – not a real coder here 😉 that when search is being executed it is being called in different way than displaying it in e.g. Most common searches widget.
You could really take this search engine to next level if it could work flawlessly with Chinese characters – another market to conquer for you 😉
Thanks!
Plugin Author
Ajay
(@ajay)
That’s clear. I think it is one of the functions that the heat map function uses that must be breaking this functionality.
Potetentially this line in the heatmap
$textsearchvar = esc_attr( $result->searchvar );
Maybe try removing the esc_attr function and also replying by esc_html
It’s difficult for me to figure it out given I don’t speak, read or write any of the Asian script languages
Sure no problem, I can test any idea you have 😉
As for $textsearchvar = esc_attr( $result->searchvar ); ->
$textsearchvar = esc_html( $result->searchvar );
Didnt make any difference 🙁
Also, i saw some solutions to Chinese characters like utf-8 in wp-admin.php. This is not a solution to this problem – every other plugin, page, post, widget or admin area works with Chinese characters. Only “widgets” of this plugin are not displayed correctly.
I googled this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13496271/how-to-properly-display-chinese-characters-in-php
You think it might be some solution?
Ok i think i found solution but i dont understand 😉
Here is someone who had similar problem and found fix:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29322108/get-chinese-characters-from-mysql
Let me know what you think 😉
Plugin Author
Ajay
(@ajay)
That’s interesting. is the better search tables set to utf8? This is the character encoding settings / collation. You can check this when browsing the database in phpMyAdmin or Adminer
It might be something like: utf8_general_ci
What would also be useful is if you browse the wp_bsearch folder (carefully) to see what is stored in there. It could be the case that the searches are not being saved correctly.
From the link above i did this command:
echo mb_detect_encoding ( $text );
And it showed ASCII on the page.
phpAdmin shows: MySQL charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)
MySQL connection collation: utf8_general_ci
I went to wp_bsearch and here is something different?
Field: searchvar
Type: varchar(100)
Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
Format: dynamic
Seems like the table is setup wrong?
wp_bsearch_daily has the same settings 🙁
Plugin Author
Ajay
(@ajay)
Hi i followed this link and changed tables wp_bsearch and wp_bsearch_daily from latin1_swedish_ci to utf8_unicode_ci
Now new searches are not being saved in the database = results are displayed on the page but is not being reflected in heath map or daily searches widget … not even with “????”
So i guess changing Collation in Settings (via phpAdmin) of the table didnt make difference here? How to make a difference?
Also why your plugin tables are being saved in latin1_swedish_ci not in generic WP utf8_general_ci ? Maybe that needs to be updated in new release also?
Thanks
Ok i got it!!!
1. I had “Enable tracking for admins” ticked off … sorry my bad …
2. I had to change in both tables searchvar from latin1_swedish_ci to utf8_general_ci
not only via “Operations” in phpAdmin but also for each table via edit on “Structure”.
I hope that this will stay that way (even after new release)? Could you make sure that the tables in your plugin will from now on be set to utf8_general_ci “??
If all implemented – you can advertise this plugin as Chinese characters friendly 😉
Plugin Author
Ajay
(@ajay)
I need to relook at the table generation cofe and make sure it is always utf8 from now on. But that should be fine
