Joom!Fish 
Version
2.5.0 (last update on Jan 2, 2013)
Rating
Compatibility
Reviews
170
License
GPLv2 or later
Non-Commercial
Type
Date Added
17 March 2006
JoomFish 2.5 is the full featured release including several addons such as a simple Router for your SEO URL's. It comes with new features such as the integration into the Joomla core translation techniques and enhanced 3rd party support.
Free documentation including video tutorials, first step documentations and additional material is available on our website. The site also includes an open forum for community support and additional resources.
The Joom!Fish club (subscription required) offers enhanced support options and a range of add ons targeted at commercial and professional websites. These include plugins to further manage/restrict the display of untranslated content, restrict certain menus and modules to specific languages and an additional frontend translation component that allows you to manage translators and what they are allowed to translate.
Images
Joomfish is a good solution but it has some weaknesses in my opinion:
1- It is not a user-friendly one. Difficult to understand some parts. UI could be integrated to the core Joomla.
2- There are 2 tables in DB and all records are stored mainly in the table jos_jf_content thus creating a huge number of raws for a single translation, say a menu item. In my case I have skipped some but I have 4 records for a menu item translation. I have not tried a content item buty it may be bigger than this. So this kind of approach will result in a huge db in no of records and size. This table can be splitted to a number of tables as it is in Joomla.
1- It is not a user-friendly one. Difficult to understand some parts. UI could be integrated to the core Joomla.
2- There are 2 tables in DB and all records are stored mainly in the table jos_jf_content thus creating a huge number of raws for a single translation, say a menu item. In my case I have skipped some but I have 4 records for a menu item translation. I have not tried a content item buty it may be bigger than this. So this kind of approach will result in a huge db in no of records and size. This table can be splitted to a number of tables as it is in Joomla.
I found this a most useful extension and it seem to work good. But above all support is great, you get replies in quit a short time, and the people are always willing to help.
I am not long using the extension so about updates and development I do not have a good insight but my guess is that the product is evolving.
I am not long using the extension so about updates and development I do not have a good insight but my guess is that the product is evolving.
I have installed many extensions on my two sites and this one is probably the most difficult one I had to install. I found the documentation extremly poor and it had huge gaps in which it presumed I knew what it was talking about.
After a couple hours, I finally just gave up.
The only thing that seemed to work well was the uninstall feature and I can give the unistall feature a Rave review as it removed all the components and modules.
After a couple hours, I finally just gave up.
The only thing that seemed to work well was the uninstall feature and I can give the unistall feature a Rave review as it removed all the components and modules.
Some of the reviews below give the impression that this component does not work. I can assure you that it does in every respect. It provides translations to all standard Joomla content and menus.
There is a problem, the problem however, is a strange one. For a component that supports translation the product documentation requires some improvement in it's own translation. It is confusing and counter-intuitive. The chap below who is experiencing the wrong translation has made a standard error that can be fixed easily enough by configuring the component correctly. It is not his fault that it is confusing, he made the same mistake that I originally did... putting a Spanish translation in the English section.
If the documentation was to undergo a review and be translated correctly then I think the product would be much easier to implement.
Yereverluvinunclebert
There is a problem, the problem however, is a strange one. For a component that supports translation the product documentation requires some improvement in it's own translation. It is confusing and counter-intuitive. The chap below who is experiencing the wrong translation has made a standard error that can be fixed easily enough by configuring the component correctly. It is not his fault that it is confusing, he made the same mistake that I originally did... putting a Spanish translation in the English section.
If the documentation was to undergo a review and be translated correctly then I think the product would be much easier to implement.
Yereverluvinunclebert
I was really excited about this program because of all the hype around it. I actually thought this would do the job. However, it defaults to en-GB and it's impossible to remove it. Also, the translated articles do not show up correctly. When you view the site in the original language, the translated article shows up! When you view the article in the translated language the original language shows up with a message underneath the article title that there isn't a translated version! I spent ALL NIGHT LONG trying to get this program to function correctly. I even spent hours going through the code and reprogramming the whole thing just so that it would default to en-US. But even after I finally managed to get that working, there was still the problem of showing the wrong pages! This program's heart is in the right place but it's a total waste of time.
Owner's reply
Hi,
Did you just installed a new language pack of en-US and set this to default in your site? The default language is clearly not fixed in Joom!Fish.
I have the impression there was some mis-understanding how the process works and this is something I would really love to discuss with you to improve our documentation and tutorials. If you would please contact us via the joomfish.net/forum.
Joom!Fish is serving well for huge websites with a couple of languages, if they would have these kind of problems we would not be where we are. Looking forward talking to you and improving the tutorials.
Alex
Does exactly what you want it to do! Easy to use and makes all translated content easy to manage. Have a look at my company's site to see it in action with English, German & Chinese:
www.libs-international.com
Thanks :)
jamie
www.libs-international.com
Thanks :)
jamie
Owner's reply
Hi Jamie,
Many thanks - please also post your in our forum ( http://www.joomfish.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=32 ). We like to build up showcase and I like to include your site.
Best greetings
Alex
That's one minute to install and the remaining 29 checking out the online tutorial and checking backwards and forwards. I'm based in Wales which means anything for the public sector, and any major voluntary organisations have to be bilingual English/Welsh, so this is going to be a huge help.
Only problem is that the Welsh language translation is only a Beta and there's a few bits missing, so I'm going to have to do my bit for the community and help translate what's remaining.
Diolch!
Only problem is that the Welsh language translation is only a Beta and there's a few bits missing, so I'm going to have to do my bit for the community and help translate what's remaining.
Diolch!
Great!! Joomfish is great!! I installed (no problems) and in less than an hour I was translating my articles. Quite easy to learn.
I only had one bug. The module "languaje selector" doesn't read the joomfish css. So it is always -raw images-.(for me no problem, it fits with my web style).
Thanks a lot to the developers! And also thanks for the video tutorial in your website, useful!!!
I only had one bug. The module "languaje selector" doesn't read the joomfish css. So it is always -raw images-.(for me no problem, it fits with my web style).
Thanks a lot to the developers! And also thanks for the video tutorial in your website, useful!!!
I have great faith by the testimony here that this is an excellent product. While my first shot at using it ended in disaster (I had to reload my admin module from scratch), I believe it was more operator error than the program itself.
This is a thorough and complete application that is going to bring a huge increase in visitors to my site once I get it up and running properly. I am on my way to the forums to do it right this time.
The best thing you can do to PROPERLY learn this app is to read, be patient, and take your time learning. It is definitely NOT an instant gratification program for those who want to install and go! My USA "gotta have it now" mindset foiled first attempts at installing and running this app. I am confident it will not be that way the next time!
This is a thorough and complete application that is going to bring a huge increase in visitors to my site once I get it up and running properly. I am on my way to the forums to do it right this time.
The best thing you can do to PROPERLY learn this app is to read, be patient, and take your time learning. It is definitely NOT an instant gratification program for those who want to install and go! My USA "gotta have it now" mindset foiled first attempts at installing and running this app. I am confident it will not be that way the next time!
this application can really be useful, but if you change your mind (like I did), and try to unionist it you will find that you may run into serious issues.
Users to my site could not log out or in, and then even the admin. It could cause some serious problems to your site!
The application is very easy to use, and you can see where you can put your translations. Did not work for me though.
Users to my site could not log out or in, and then even the admin. It could cause some serious problems to your site!
The application is very easy to use, and you can see where you can put your translations. Did not work for me though.
Owner's reply
Dear Guriarte,
Could you please get in touch with us within our forum? This shouldn't definitely not be the case. Joom!Fish was especially design in a way that you can easily turn it off again or even remove it.
In our constant effort to improve our extension your personal experience and feedback is highly appreciated.
Thanks
Alex
I don't know why it is, but this is one of the hardest-to-manage components or script packages of any kind that I've ever tried out. It simply isn't intuitive, at least not to me, and the documentation is useless. However, once you learn that you have to publish your main language twice - first normally through Article manager, then the second time as a copy of itself as a translation, it will start to make sense and show it's value.
I love the fact you can translate EVERYTHING on Joom!Fish, even those bits that seem completely useless to translate, like usernames. (No, I still don't know why you would want to, but I love the fact the option is there.)
It took me about 3 days of active use to figure this extension out, and I normally allow 15 minutes... However, it was worth the effort.
I love the fact you can translate EVERYTHING on Joom!Fish, even those bits that seem completely useless to translate, like usernames. (No, I still don't know why you would want to, but I love the fact the option is there.)
It took me about 3 days of active use to figure this extension out, and I normally allow 15 minutes... However, it was worth the effort.
Owner's reply
Dear Sebastyne,
Could you please get in touch with us e.g. using our forum. We are very interested in making Joom!Fish more intuitive to use. For this we need feedback of users.
Many thanks in advanced
Alex
Nice component indeed. I got both my content and dynamic elements easily translated. The back-end translation management is convenient and user-friendly.
The only issue appeared is No translation available message on both languages (including the default one) - yet after some forum browsing the issue has been solved (well...it's better to say passed through with Settings' change).
Also a little drawback - it took me some time finding a Settings button :)
Yet all these slight issues are easily forgotten when you get such a powerful multi-lingual functionality.
Thanks, guys :)
The only issue appeared is No translation available message on both languages (including the default one) - yet after some forum browsing the issue has been solved (well...it's better to say passed through with Settings' change).
Also a little drawback - it took me some time finding a Settings button :)
Yet all these slight issues are easily forgotten when you get such a powerful multi-lingual functionality.
Thanks, guys :)
It could be a great component and I do apologize, I suppose, for the very poor rating but this is awful. I installed the new version of Joomfish, realized that while it's good software, you're pretty much on your own translation-wise and with multiple duplicate untranslated pages, I TRIED to uninstall it. When I uninstalled it, I received a fatal error message and now I cannot access my entire administrator section for Joomla. What a nightmare!
I re-installed JoomFish and while I receive no errors, there are no translations except for:
The Search Box
The area that describes the author and time content was written
The footer area
In the Control Panel in the Translations I checked to make sure that everything was published and the green indicator icon was there, not the little red x. I checked to make sure that menus, banners, contents, etc. were translated and published and it there were no red x's. I also looked under Statistics, Check Translation Status and the column "not valid" is all zeros.
I am beginning to see why this "Club Membership" thing is pushed here. Gold Silver and Bronze.... Hmmm.... Unfortunately, small public libraries will never be able to afford these "metals". So it looks my Spanish speaking community better hurry up and learn some english. What a shame.
If you can't afford to be a member of their club, it appears you are out of luck on getting it to do what it is supposed to do - translate pages of a website.
Why didn't I give it a Poor instead of just Fair? Because the administrative side was very nice. To bad it didn't really "translate" anything. But the admin side was very well done and easy to adjust to. It just that it lies to you. It says that everything is translated OK and everything is published but.... none of this is true on the site end.
The Search Box
The area that describes the author and time content was written
The footer area
In the Control Panel in the Translations I checked to make sure that everything was published and the green indicator icon was there, not the little red x. I checked to make sure that menus, banners, contents, etc. were translated and published and it there were no red x's. I also looked under Statistics, Check Translation Status and the column "not valid" is all zeros.
I am beginning to see why this "Club Membership" thing is pushed here. Gold Silver and Bronze.... Hmmm.... Unfortunately, small public libraries will never be able to afford these "metals". So it looks my Spanish speaking community better hurry up and learn some english. What a shame.
If you can't afford to be a member of their club, it appears you are out of luck on getting it to do what it is supposed to do - translate pages of a website.
Why didn't I give it a Poor instead of just Fair? Because the administrative side was very nice. To bad it didn't really "translate" anything. But the admin side was very well done and easy to adjust to. It just that it lies to you. It says that everything is translated OK and everything is published but.... none of this is true on the site end.
Owner's reply
Hi,
As we say everywhere Joom!Fish is not an extension for automatic translations. Was this that what you expected? Even in our Club you will not find a such an extension. There is a different project this offers something like that together with Joom!Fish
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/languages/automatic-translations/6541/details
May be the combination is what you are looking for.
I've been using Joomfish sine I sarted to manage my website with Joomla! and I'm totally happy with it all the time. I recently moved to 1.5; migration went painless thanks to released migrator plugins, but I experienced some serious trouble with getting it to work with Sh404Sef. Here You can see perfect cooperation between developers off those two extensions: Patches done the work for me.
I understand that developers want to be rewarded for their work, that's why I want to donate them just to say "Thank You", although I don't like the way "club" works now; I'd prefer normal donation option and true "extensions club" for eg. 70Euro/year, serving additional extensions for members...
Anyway, big "Thank You" Joomfish developers for that extension!
I understand that developers want to be rewarded for their work, that's why I want to donate them just to say "Thank You", although I don't like the way "club" works now; I'd prefer normal donation option and true "extensions club" for eg. 70Euro/year, serving additional extensions for members...
Anyway, big "Thank You" Joomfish developers for that extension!
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