Updating English UK Dictionary

[NorfolkGreg]

I'm working on my new MyBB forum and installed the English (UK) by flashydave  (which should more correctly be named English (GB) ) and found that unlike the default English US dictionary there is a missing icon description in the forum line that is under the Board Statistics section:

Forum Contains New Posts
Forum Contains No New Posts

Redirect Forum

Searching for why it does not appear led me to the fact that flashydave's dictionary is missing the line

$l['forum_closed'] = 'Forum is Closed';

in the global.lang.php file. There are also quite a number of lines that are changed for no obvious (spelling difference) reason and some that appear to have errors, for example a lack of backslash to escape the apostrophe in:

$l['welcome_todaysposts'] = "View Today's Posts";

Or is that a mistake/unnecessary in the US dictionary as it appears to display correctly in the lower panel in my forum.

Are there good reasons why flashydave's "personalised" dictionary have been accepted as an official dictionary at the time? Is it that the "Forum is closed" message wasn't needed in the version of MyBB available at the time of its release?

If I'm going to contribute to MyBB rather than just make some personal preference changes in my local copy would the best approach be to go through all the files in the English US pack and make all necessary spelling changes and nothing else, rather than attempt to update flashydave's version?

New to MyBB and somewhat confused!

[NorfolkGreg]

...
Are there good reasons why flashydave's "personalised" dictionary have been accepted as an official dictionary at the time? Is it that the "Forum is closed" message wasn't needed in the version of MyBB available at the time of its release?

If I'm going to contribute to MyBB rather than just make some personal preference changes in my local copy would the best approach be to go through all the files in the English US pack and make all necessary spelling changes and nothing else, rather than attempt to update flashydave's version?

New to MyBB and somewhat confused!

OK! More investigation and gradually getting used to MyBB tells me the problem is more fundamental.

I now see that flashydave's dictionary is designed for MyBB 1.8.6 or as the file I'm look at puts it:
// Compatible version of MyBB : 1806
and, of course, I'm running 1.8.34

Not only does that dictionary leave the missing item referred to earlier,
   
It also corrupts the posting screen in the Tread Subscription and Attachment areas:
   
When is switch back to the default English dictionary it looks as it should do:
   

In short, it seems to be that falshydave's English (UK) is so incompatible with the current release of MyBB that it really ought to be removed from the Translation downloads page and put in some archive somewhere.

Or have I still got it horribly wrong and I am misunderstanding how I should be operating?

[nixer55]

Seeing as that dictionary hasn't been updated since 2016-03-19.  I personally feel you've repeated the same error many do for any non-standard component.  While MyBB has moved on, that software has not.

In an ideal world, that dictionary would be removed, or somehow flagged.  But as an open source project, MyBB doesn't have the resources.  So it's best to keep your guard up and expect problems with older components.  

At least you've reported your findings.  But many ignore warning signals, and don't search for community experience either.  Which might save someone a lot of effort. 

[NorfolkGreg]

I am experienced enough in open source software to recognise what you say. I'm just a little disappointed/embarrassed. It hadn't occurred to me that a dictionary might get out of date. We Brits have always spelt color as "colour"! Why should a 2016 dictionary be out of date?

Of course, I now realise that I shouldn't think of it as a dictionary, as in a spell checker, but as the documentation calls it, a "language pack"! New software features means new phrases need to be added to the pack.

It's also occurred to me that some of the corruption I have shown above may be caused by the Theme I'm using. I'm extensively editing the "Default theme with more contrast, mobile friendly by gergang2". It's got all kinds of minor coding errors in it, some of which throw browsers into disarray. But I'll report those issues, in due course, elsewhere.