Forum links = failure

[moman]

I have a few forums that serve as links: for example, one of my forums links to pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/.

When translated to a foreign language, the link is rewritten with the language in the URL, i.e. to pentaxforums.com/sv/lensreviews/, which obviously returns a failure. Is there a fix for this? I'd rather avoid the 301 htaccess route.

[vBET]

Please be calm. We know well this situation - you just need to configure vBET appropriately

Please set in vBET options your forum directory and make sure you have appropriate .htaccess rules (directory need to be added as described in manual).

[moman]

I'm not sure what you mean. AFAIK everything is configured properly per the manual.

[vBET]

Go to Admin CP -> vBET -> Main and set 'Forum directory'

[moman]

That's already set. I don't think you understand my problem.

This only applies to forums that act as links. If a forum links to a folder on my website that's outside of the forum directory, the /lang/ is still added in between, thus resulting in a 404 error. Obviously that area of the site cannot be translated using vBET.

[vBET]

OK - sorry for confusion. I really didn't understood the issue.

As I can see your forum pages are translated well.

Now area outside forum directory. As you can see on this forum vBET supports translation of area outside forum directory - of course those pages have to be generated by vBulletin. So if your areas outside forum directory are also generated by vBulletin you are able to translate it.

What is needed:
1. Separate .htaccess file in directory where are pages to translate (you will find appropriate rules in do-not-upload directory)
2. All URL's on pages translated outside forum directory must be absolute (starting with http), otherwise you can have issues with translation tracking.
3. If those pages are in some other subdirectory (not in the domain root) then you will have to configure 'Keep Directories' in AdminCP->vBET->Main

In case of any future questions - just ask

[moman]

Ok- thanks! I will try this, but I have one more question.

Is it possible to just disable translation for those areas and have the link properly point to the url? I have a hunch that the section in question won't translate as it isn't a vBulletin plugin (it only queries the DB separately).

[tavenger5]

moman - I have a custom addon that translated fine. I added it to "Keep Directories"

[moman]

I'll try this with the htaccess file, but five bucks says it won't work. The section in question doesn't necessarily need translation at all, as it is highly technical, so I just want to get around the bug in vBET that translates external links that aren't necessarily part of vB.

[moman]

I applied the htaccess rules as stated in the readme.

RewriteRule ^/?(af|sq|ar|be|bg|ca|zh-CN|hr|cs|da|nl|en|et|tl|fi|fr|gl|de|el|iw|hi|hu|is|id|ga|it|ja|ko|lv|lt|mk|ms|mt|no|fa|pl|pt|ro|ru|sr|sk|sl|es|sw|sv|zh-TW|th|tr|uk|vi|cy|yi)/$ index.php?language=$1&vbet_outside=true [L,QSA]

RewriteRule ^/?(af|sq|ar|be|bg|ca|zh-CN|hr|cs|da|nl|en|et|tl|fi|fr|gl|de|el|iw|hi|hu|is|id|ga|it|ja|ko|lv|lt|mk|ms|mt|no|fa|pl|pt|ro|ru|sr|sk|sl|es|sw|sv|zh-TW|th|tr|uk|vi|cy|yi)/(.*)?$ $2?language=$1&vbet_outside=true [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbet_outside=true

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1?vbet_outside=true [L,QSA]

While Page Not Found - PentaxForums.com did not return a 404, the page was not translated (obviously, since there's no vbet init there), and, furthermore, all links from that page returned the 404 as vBSEO CRR's stopped working.

Therefore, let's just take the simpler solution and save ourselves a headache:

How to I prevent forum links from translating?

Currently, Pentax Lens Review and Specification Database - Main Index (a link) is rewritten to http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pl/lensreviews/ (404).

I want the link to remain unchanged.