This is a v1.0 update release of PointFire 2019.  It supports SharePoint classic pages as well as Modern ones.  If you received an interim release from IceFire support for testing, it must be updated with this release.  This release is an update release, with many resolved issues.

The installation package and documentation are available here.  

The next update release is expected in January 2022.

Release Notes – July 7, 2021

Deploying PointFire 2019

It is recommended that you run the installation on the server where Central Administration is located. Once PointFire 2019 is installed on the target server you can deploy the feature by running the PFConfiguration tool:
Start ->PointFire 2019 ->PFConfig

Note: If you experience issues running the configuration tool from the shortcut, you can navigate to the PointFire directory and run PFConfig or one of the installation scripts directly.
C:\Program Files\IceFire\PointFire2019

• PFConfig.exe – PointFire Deployment Manager
• InstallPointFire.ps1 - to install PointFire using PowerShell.
• UpgradePointFire.ps1 - Upgrade PointFire using PowerShell.
• RemovePointFire.ps1 - To retract the solution using PowerShell

Note: Deploying using the scripts requires additional configuration steps. Please see the install guide for detailed information.
PointFire 2019 also includes an optional app for modern sites.

Updating PointFire 2019
If you are updating an existing PointFire 2019 deployment, launch the PointFire Deployment Manager and follow through the upgrade process, or retract then re-deploy PointFire, or navigate to the installation directory to run the upgrade script.

Also remember to update the PointFire-2019.app in the app catalog and in the individual sites.

Note: If configuration keys in the web.config files have been edited manually after PFConfig initially set them, using PFConfig to update the PointFire may erase or overwrite some of those keys. For safety, note the values of the keys currently in web.config prior to updating.

PointFire 2019 also includes an optional app for modern sites. To add it to app catalog ur update it, you can drag and drop the pointfire-2019-sppkg file, or use the PowerShell script UploadAppToAppCatalogSite.ps1 . Then for each site, add it using the Site Contents page, or upgrade it if a previous version is already on the site, or use the scripts InstallAppFromAppCatalog.ps1 or UpgradeAppFromAppCatalog.ps1 .

Upgrading from PointFire 2016

Upgrading from a PointFire 2016 is not yet fully supported. Contact support for availability. The scripts PF2019Migration.ps1, SetWebPartLangSetting.ps1 and CallSetWebPartLangSetting.ps1 are included, but additional work is needed to complete the migration. Please note that Item Language and language variations columns have changed, so any customizations based on them will also have to be revised.

New Features

• InstallAppFromAppCatalogWebApplication.ps1 New scripts to install/update the PF219 modern app at the web application level
• ApplyTranslationsMultiSites.ps1 New script to apply MUI step 3 to multiple sites
• Pf2019MigrationSiteLevel.ps1 New post-migration script to update Multilingual Translations lists
• PF2019 Migration script - which level: Web Application, Site Collection, Site

Resolved Issues

• Modern Quick edit ignores unfiltered setting
• Not all items in the list were being shown in the Quick View.
• Values in the dropdown choice column options are not translated in quick edit mode
• Values in the dropdown multi look up column options are not translated in quick edit mode
• The values of multiple value Look up field is not translated in New/edit form
• When multilingual list/library default language selected as English, it does not set the source item field of the source document to "en"
• If you translate the Home.aspx modern page, then the translated (copied) page content only contains News and activity webparts.
• Infinite page reload for the translated (copied) pages.
• While sending the document for translation through "Translate Document", it shows "An Error occurred while creating new Variations for items.". But the items is uploaded successfully and the item language set is wrong.
• Translating classic wiki pages, doesn't copy webparts.
• Send the document/list item for translation through "Translate Document/Item" you can see the error "An Error occurred while creating new Variations for items."
• Send a wiki page for translation through "Translate Document". You can see only the page contents are copied in the translated page.
• Send a list item/wiki page for translation using Translate item/Translate document option. You can see a pop up message saying "Machine Translation is not available. Item copied instead." and the list item and page content are copied.
• In Team site, global navigation terms are not added in MTL, when unclicked Untranslated only option and performed step 1
• In MUI step 1, when Untranslated Only is unchecked, it does not retrieve all items and they all have their wrong variations added in MTL.
• In MUI step 2, the Column/list title and description have got same variation for both en and fr
• After performing MUI step 3, delete some terms from MTL and perform step 1 (Unchecked). It is getting the terms with wrong variations. for eg:- for Site name it has added the site description value as the Variation.
• After performing MUI step 3, delete all term from MTL and perform step 1 (Checked). It is getting all terms but should only get untranslated terms.
• Refiner Labels not translating on Results page. The Site is using the results.aspx page (on the same site) for their search results, with refiners on this page.
• he refiner labels are not translated on the results page.
• Filtering on a choice column (regular view). When in French interface, if you select a value from one of the choice column, the filter is applied but the values in that choice column now show in English.
• The MTL "term" column is not unique. That means they can add duplicate items to the list.
• If we have three languages activated in the site and you have provided the variation of two languages, while saving it is showing save failed. But it successfully saved.
• Changed the language to French then while doing manage variation, the pop up message is showing in English.
• After removing Multilingual in modern page, the redirection is still working.
• Read only user can open the Multilingual Setting option.
• In event list Calendar view filter/unfilter is not working
• Issue when redirecting from "Calendar" view to "All events" view
• Error with French characters the ULS.
• Toggle language unresponsive when anchor tag in URL
• Many other minor changes and optimizations
  
  

Known Issues

• Other instances where refiners are not being translated
• Global navigation for Publishing sites is not getting translated in Modern mode
• Quick Launch is not translated for read only users in Modern mode unless they have "Edit Personal User Information" permission level
• A 1 to 5 second performance issue on some libraries with many folders
• Some ribbon icon text not localized in modern mode
• View name containing a double quote is translated in the custom list in the webpart, but it is not translated in the ribbon.

   

Documentation
Documentation for PointFire 2019 is available to be downloaded from the following links:
PointFire 2019 Installation Guide
PointFire 2019 Administrators Guide
PointFire 2019 Users Guide

PointFire 2016 v1.0 to 2019 v1.0 Upgrade Guide:

http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/142/0/pointfire-2019

Support

We recommend that you, or whoever you designate for support, register an account on the support site http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Base/UserRegistration/Register . Support can be obtained by clicking on New Ticket on the site after you login or by sending an e-mail to icefire@wssplus.ca

PointFire Translator version 2.0.1.0 is now available. 

This is a supported release.  It fixes several errors in v2.0.0 and is easier to install.

It makes it simple to translate Modern pages such as the ones in Communication and Teams sites and those produced by the Multilingual Page Publishing feature, as well as classic pages, documents, lists, and metadata.  It has several interfaces, including via a SharePoint App, a web interface, scripting, and Power Automate.

If you were using version 1.2, the major change is that you do not need to install it on the workstation of the person carrying out the translation (although that is still supported), but it can be on a shared physical or virtual server.  It runs under the identity of the person who called it via the app, it can also be called by Power Automate, and it supports the SharePoint Multilingual Page Publishing feature.
 

New Features

• ⦁ Many improvements to AppReg.ps1 to make it easier and clearer to use, and difficult to enter incorrect parameters
  ⦁ Support many new languages, including Inuktitut, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Oriya Gujarati, Punjabi, Malayalam, Kannada, Maori
  ⦁ Improved support for Khmer, Lao, Burmese, Nepali, Armenian, Amharic, Albanian, Tigrinya
  ⦁ Ability to use a specific Azure region
  ⦁ Support sites where MLP was implemented then turned off

Resolved Issues

• App
  ⦁ Error with Multilingual Page Publishing - error translating original when some pages but not all pages translated
  ⦁ App localization in Chinese (simplified)
  ⦁ Better messages when PointFire Translator Server is not found and using Machine Translation Service instead
  ⦁ Warn that Machine Translation Service does not support multi-select
  ⦁ Disabled translation of folder types
  ⦁ More consistent handling of localized list/library names
  ⦁ Better messages when document does not require re-translation
  ⦁ Some missing localizations in Irish, Kazakh, Azeri, Bosnian, Macedonian, Dari

• Server
  ⦁ Error in auto-detect of language
  ⦁ Better handling of incorrect ClientID/secret
  ⦁ Error with Multilingual Page Publishing - error translating original when some pages but not all pages translated
  ⦁ Better error handling for incorrect list item translation requests
  ⦁ Issues with filtering news webparts with hyphenated language codes like pt-br, pt-br, zh-cn, zh-tw, sr-cyrl-rs, sr-latn-cs
  ⦁ Changes to the code signing certificate autority
  ⦁ Changes to the service to avoid error on startup
  ⦁ Translation for image webpart's overlay text and alternative text.
  ⦁ Changes to support Stream webpart, Quick Chart webpart, Countdown Timer webpart
  ⦁ Improved error when Microsoft IdentityModel Extensions are missing
  ⦁ Better support for documents in folders
  ⦁ Better support for Bosnian
  ⦁ Better support for pt-pt and pt-br
  ⦁ Better support for languages that are not SharePoint languages
  ⦁ Problem when the re-translated name of a file is different from the previously translated name

   

• Many other small fixes and performance enhancements

PointFire Translator can translate individual items or entire libraries or lists in SharePoint Online.  It includes the PoinFire Translator App which will use PointFire Translator Server as a default translation service, and fall back to SharePoint's Machine Translation Service if PointFire Translator is not available.

It can be downloaded here (login required)

http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/146/30/pointfire-translator-server

For more information, contact sales@icefire.ca

This is a recommended update release for PointFire 365 for SharePoint Online

This release adds support for new and changed Microsoft functionality and corrects a number of issues in version 2.4.1.  It also corrects some significant issues that are currently only found in the Targeted Release version of SharePoint Online, and that may appear in the General Availability version at an unknown date.  If you were provided with an interim release numbered v2.4.1.x, you should update to this release.

New and Changed Features

• Supports the fast localization of the new App Bar and Global Navigation features when the user language changes.

Note: Microsoft's current release contains what we consider to be a bug: in order for the language of the Global Navigation to change, not only must the language be present on the "Home site" which contains the navigation, it must also be present on the root site, which otherwise plays no role. The workaround is that you must ensure that the root site has at least all of the languages that the Home site supports.

• Added PowerShell script to add/upgrade both PointFire365 modern and classic app in hub site as well as in associated sites : UpgradeAppHubAndAssociateSites.ps1

Resolved Issues

• When clicking "remove multilingual" from a library, the page would sometimes reload in a loop.
• When executing "Clear Cache" for one site, other sites would sometimes show webparts that should display only in another language.
• Refresh loop on some screens that filter by language code "pt-br" and possibly other language codes that contain a hyphen.
• Hub navigation language did not immediately change when language was changed, due to a recent change in SharePoint's caching of hub navigation.
• Additional messages in console to assist with diagnosing issues.

PointFire makes SharePoint truly multilingual and lets your users collaborate in their language.  Two different users going to the same page on the same site will each see it almost entirely in their language, both UI and content, without using Variations.

To get your copy, go to http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/List/Index/1/pointfire-installation-packages and log in or create an account.

The fully-featured trial version can be downloaded for free and can be used for development and testing, with some pre-sale support.

This release corrects certain issues.  If you received an interim release from IceFire support for testing, it must be updated with this release.  This release is a bug fix release, with minor functionality changes.  It is recommended that you update if you have encountered the issues that are discussed.

Documentation is available here.  

The next update release is expected in July 2021.

Release Notes – January 14, 2021

Deploying PointFire 2016

It is recommended that you run the installation on the server where Central Administration is located. Once PointFire 2016 is installed on the target server you can deploy the feature by running the PFConfiguration tool:

Start ->PointFire 2016 ->PFConfig

Note: If you experience issues running the configuration tool from the shortcut, you can navigate to the PointFire directory and run PFConfig or one of the installation scripts directly.

C:\Program Files\IceFire\PointFire2016

⦁ PFConfig.exe – PointFire Deployment Manager
⦁ InstallPointFire.ps1 - to install PointFire using PowerShell.
⦁ UpgradePointFire.ps1 - Upgrade PointFire using PowerShell.
⦁ RemovePointFire.ps1 - To retract the solution using PowerShell

Note: Deploying using the scripts requires additional configuration steps. Please see the install guide for detailed information.

Updating PointFire 2016 

If you are updating an existing PointFire 2016 deployment, launch the PointFire Deployment Manager and follow through the upgrade process, or retract then re-deploy PointFire, or navigate to the installation directory to run the upgrade script.
Note: If configuration keys in the web.config files have been edited manually after PFConfig initially set them, using PFConfig to update the PointFire may erase or overwrite some of those keys. For safety, note the values of the keys currently in web.config prior to updating.

Upgrading from PointFire 2013

If you are upgrading from a PointFire 2013 deployment, please consult the PointFire 2013 v1.0 to 2016 v1.0 Upgrade Guide.

New Features

• none

Resolved Issues

• Values in the Display form of a list do not translate

• No translation in the People Picker dialog box

• The title of the People Picker dialog box (usually "Select People" in English) is not translated

• The term "Active Directory" is not translated in the People Picker dialog box

• In search drop down at the top right of a page, the term "Everything" does not translate

• Values in the "View All Properties" page of a document set do not translate

• Performance issue on Document Set page, from too many calls to PFAPI.aspx

   

Documentation
Documentation for PointFire 2016 is available to be downloaded from the following links:

PointFire 2016 Installation Guide: 
http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/134/0/pointfire-2016-documentation

PointFire 2016 Administrators Guide:

http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/134/0/pointfire-2016-documentation

PointFire 2016 Users Guide: 

http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/134/0/pointfire-2016-documentation

PointFire 2013 v1.0 to 2016 v1.0 Upgrade Guide: 

http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/134/0/pointfire-2016-documentation

Support
We recommend that you, or whoever you designate for support, register an account on the support site http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Base/UserRegistration/Register . Support can be obtained by clicking on New Ticket on the site after you login or by sending an e-mail to icefire@wssplus.ca

For those who have been using PointFire Power Translator v1.2 or above and have reasons why they cannot upgrade to PointFire Translator v2.0, then PointFire Power Translator v1.2.2.0 is the latest release.

It adds certain features and bug fixes that are already available in v2.0, without the major changes to architecture that v2.0 requires.  Contact sales or support to see which version you should be using.

It can be downloaded here: http://community.icefire.ca/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/141/12/pointfire-power-translator-v12

Although it is not a PointFire issue, we wish to inform users of SharePoint 2019 that Microsoft has confirmed a serious issue in non-English modern sites after applying the September Cumulative Update of SharePoint 2019.  Several site components will have their text replaced with blanks.

The release notes for the September Cumulative Update have been updated to show this as a "known issue".

We recommend not installing this cumulative update, but waiting for one in which the issue is corrected.  More details can be found in this blog post from Microsoft Senior Escalation Enginee Stefan Gossner.

Update: You can download a fix for this problem https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4461512/september-21-2020-update-for-sharepoint-server-2019-kb4461512