Internationalization, languages, and install

OpenEMR Development
1

drbowen wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

It would be nice as we develop more translations that the install routine requests a country code.  Then pulls up the correct language.  The "Demographics" section will need to be modified slightly to pull up the correct demographics since most countries do no use US postal codes, social security numbers but do have postal codes, ID numbers and sometimes more surnames. 

Central and South America for instance will use two surnames and most US based products do not allow for this.  It seems the modification of the demographics page to pull up the correct would be easily accomplished based on the international country code. 

We could use the already established international telephone prefixes.

I have been contacted by users or am aware of interest in the following countries:

United States, Puerto Rico, Australia, Holland, Sweden, Israel, Kenya, Nepal,India, Malaysia, Japan, China, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and South Africa.

Sam Bowen, MD

2

drbowen wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

By the way, is there a language table in OpenEMR that already holds constants for English and Spanish?  I have been looking at the language directory but it is not immediately obvious how to proceed with a translation. 

My wife is a health care provider who is fluent in German.  I have had offers on Dutch, Hebrew, and Africaans.   I was interested in using the following telephone contry codes for these translations:

1  English (United States)
2  Spanish (Multiple countires in Central and South America, Spain)
31 Dutch (Netherlands)
46 Swedish
27 Africaans (South Africa)
49 German
972 Hebrew (Israel)

Anyone interested in offering additional translations would then use the Approriate Country code for their language.

Sam Bowen, MD

3

andres_paglayan wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

there’s a readme file under the translation modules,
I’ll try to run some tests this weekend
and give you a better how to,

4

drbowen wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

In 2.8.2 the following languages are already defined:

1 en English
2 se Swedish
3 es Spanish
4 de German
5 du Dutch
6 he Hebrew

however in 2.8.3-dev only

1 en English
2 se Swedish
3 es Spanish

are defined.

5

andres_paglayan wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

interesting,
some inserts missing somewhere then,
that should be easy to find in the sql files,
thanks for this info

6

drbowen wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

Also in 2.8.2 there about 60 English "Constants" and about 150 spanish terms.  In 2.8.3-dev I see neither language constants or Spanish translations?

7

drbowen wrote on Friday, June 29, 2007:

Dear Andres:

Since there are only at this time only English and Spanish constants could you go ahead and fix these constants:

31 Dutch (Netherlands)
46 Swedish
27 Africaans (South Africa)
49 German
972 Hebrew (Israel)

Sam

8

drbowen wrote on Saturday, June 30, 2007:

We could also do "localization" codes.  For instance in South Africa there are 11 languages. 

English
Afrikaans
Northern Sotho (Sepedi)
Southern Sotho (Sesotho)
Zulu
Xhosa
Tswana
Swati
Venda
Tsonga

of these the main languages are

English
Afrikaans
Northern Sotho (Sepedi)
Zulu

We could adapt this by using the main telephone code and then append a two character language code:

27en English
27af Afrikaans
27zu Zulu
27ns Northern Sotho

The only purpose of having a separate English code 27en would be to bring up the correct demmographics code though it would be useful to pull up a country specific demographic page (for the different IDs and postal codes.

We could use a similar system for all of the countries that speak and use Spanish.  While there is one "Standard Spanish" that is spoken on the "news channels" there are many dialects.

How hard would it be to bring up the Country code on a per user basis?

Sam Bowen, MD

9

angela_smith wrote on Wednesday, July 04, 2007:

Hi Andres

With regards to the country codes, I have noticed that there are some changes that are automatically made to the program when you specify your country code in globals as something else besides 1, e.g. zip becomes postal etc. Looking at the forms code I have then extended this feature onto other fields. I do not exactly understand how this code for swapping field names works, but it appears that there are only two choices - 1 or not 1. Is it possible to extend this swapping ability?

As well as language, as Dr Bowen mentioned, there are also demographic details that need to be customized. E.g. here in South Africa we require a different street address and postal address. In addition, we use metric measurements - kilograms, metres, centimetres, and celcius - how easy would conversion be (and how would that affect the BMI calculation?)

Just some ideas - let me know what you think, what’s possible etc.

Angela

10

andres_paglayan wrote on Thursday, July 05, 2007:

at the current time there’s no support for different address types and other internationalization adjustments,
it is possible to extend it,
the metric conversion wouldn’t be very difficult,
it involves editing changes only in the forms were they need to be used,

11

drbowen wrote on Saturday, July 28, 2007:

I have requests to add both Africaans and Turkish.  There are still a lot of English phrases coming up in the "Turkish" translation.  If I started working on some of these should I submit these to you Andres?

How does it look in Spanish?

Sam Bowen, MD

12

lannym wrote on Wednesday, August 29, 2007:

>Central and South America for instance will use two surnames and most US based products do not allow for >this

I am evaluating OpenEMR, for a  small cosmetic surgery center; in Cali, Colombia. OpenEMR was recommended to me by an M.D. in North Carolina.  Today, I downloaded the OpenEMR Live CD and I am probably going to recommend OpenEMR to them. Yes, Dr. Bowen is correct, in Latin America, two last names are used and this *is* a requirement here.

I contemplate installing OpenEMR on CentOS. Is there documentation available, on the web or preferably
for download, that gives a newbie "how to" install instructions? Will be installed on a headless server,
with no removable media, over a network. TIA, Lanny

13

drbowen wrote on Wednesday, August 29, 2007:

Centos is a RedHat Enterprise clone and installation will be similar to the FedoraCore instructions.

Are you comfortable with command line installations?

From what I remember about Centos, it uses a web based gui which allows you to have an easier time at administrating the packages. It also has the yum package manager which makes things a easier. I haven’t used Centos myself but is reported to be  very secure and relatively easy to administrate. Try this link:

http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/yum/

You’ll need to install and configure at a minimum:

Apache
MySQL
PHP

and then OpenEMR.

There are a number of howtos on the project web page:

Sincerely,

Sam Bowen, MD

14

lannym wrote on Thursday, August 30, 2007:

>You’ll need to install and configure at a minimum:
>Apache
>MySQL
>PHP

Dr. Bowen: I’d like to verify which versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP are required, for OpenEMR v.2.8.3.

Once I know that, I will decide between CentOS 4.4 and CentOS 5.0. I have install DVD’s for both releases and after installing from DVD, I can update over the Internet. I can use a terminal window, if I know what
command to type, without any problem. Yes, CentOS is like RHEL, so it has a very long life and is much more stable than Fedora Core. Also, the CentOS Mailing List is excellent. I did not mean to hijack this thread, about internationalization, with technical questions! I should have posted part of that, in a different thread. Thanks much! Lanny

15

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, August 30, 2007:

I have had success with CentOS 5 (64-bit).  It’s a bit tricky; I recall that some of the required packages came from the rpmforge repository, and that php.ini needed several changes.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

16

drbowen wrote on Thursday, August 30, 2007:

The minimum requirements are usually pretty easy from the perspective of the OpenEMR 2.8.3.  This has been formally looked at but probably:

Apache 1.3x or Apache 2.x

PHP 4.4x or PHP 5.x

MySQL 4.1x or better or 5.X

From what I am seeing on the Centos home page Centos 4 or 5 should be fine.  Centos 2 and 3 are based on MySQL 3.23 which used to be the oldest version of MySQL that would work.  This may still be the case but might not work with all the changes that have occurred in the last 2 years.

Centos 5 with the PHP 5 and MySQL 5 should give you the best forward compatibility.

I suspect the commands are going to be:

# yum install apache
# yum install php
# yum install mysql

You may need to use the version numbers but I would try it without first.

You would then need to configure the mysql database and setup a mysql root password.  You may need to modify php.ini and make sure Apache is loading the PHP module.

You can test your installation by pointing your browser at:

http://testhost/

The Apache logo and welcome page should come up.

Then create a file phpinfo.php in the web root directory.

phpinfo.php should contain the following code:

?php
phpinfo();
?

http://testhost/phpinfo.php

Should give you a nice pretty page with tons of info about your apache/php installation.

If you plain text that looks like php programming then Apache is not loading the PHP module for some reason.

Then unpack the openemr tarball in the web root directory or in a directory called openemr.

http://testhost/openemr/setup.php

should get the installation process started.

Sam Bowen, MD

17

lannym wrote on Friday, August 31, 2007:

Dr. Bowen:

THANK YOU, for the detailed information! Much appreciated! I will use CentOS 5.0. I’m sure that when I actually have the box to install this on, I will have many more questions. I apologize, again, for including installation questions, in a thread about Internationalization! Spanish language support will be much appreciated, by the doctor and his staff. I did not plan to hijack this thread. Lanny

On this URL:http://www.php.net/ is the following text:

>PHP 4 end of life announcement
>[13-Jul-2007]

>Today it is exactly three years ago since PHP 5 has been released. In those three years it has seen many >improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will >be discontinued.

>The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this >year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical >security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to >make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

>For documentation on migration for PHP 4 to PHP 5, we would like to point you to our migration guide. >There is additional information available in the PHP 5.0 to PHP 5.1 and PHP 5.1 to PHP 5.2 migration >guides as well.

Rod: In the CentOS Mailing List, I think a lot of times, people recommended to use the 32 bit OS, unless something only available in 64 bit is required. Lanny

18

drbowen wrote on Friday, August 31, 2007:

I run Gentoo in pure 64 bit mode and it has been very stable for the last year.

MySQL stores its data internally in 64 bit words. Having a 64 bit processor running in 64 bit mode gives an additional performance advantage.

The only time I have trouble with the 64 bit architecture is usually in desktop programs where not all of the software is available in 64 bit mode. This comes up in particular with Java (JRE integration with Firefox), Citrix appications, Wierd drivers for wireless internet and the like like.

On my desktops I run a mixed architecture of 64 bit when possible and 32 bit where necessary but for the server it is running in pure 64 bit mode.

Sam Bowen, MD

19

drbowen wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2007:

We are getting increasing requests for international dates and telephone numbers.  This was posted from the UK by blakspot at oemr.org:

Hi,

Firstly, what a great open product!
I am using OpenEMR for use in an Osteopathic Clinic in UK. I have tried Freemed, MirrorMed and ClearHealth 2.0 which all seem to have their own problems installing and running with xampp 1.6.3b on Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop but OpenEMR install was easy and everything just works! Congratulations on a mature, easy to use solution.

I am wondering what European modifications can be made and am looking for some hints on where to change the following:

Date format to dd-mm-yyyy
Telephone to xxxxx-xxxxxx (I set the Globals.php setting for phone to UK but it does not display as that - only US xxx-xxx-xxxx)
Changing State to County and replacing state names
Changing word Zip on Patient screens etc.

Would appreciate any help and thanks again.

http://www.oemr.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=149&forum=3

It would be nice to customize the install dialog to allow this customization to occur as new administrators are installing for the first time.

As noted above some of the customizations on the demographics page works well in the US but do not play well internationally.

Sam Bowen, MD

20

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, October 11, 2007:

There are various places in OpenEMR that look at the telephone country code when formatting dates, displaying "Postal" vs. "Zip", etc.  Most of this work was sponsored by a UK client.

Obviously, more needs to be done as OpenEMR becomes more popular internationally.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com