Inventive Dingo forums

This thread is for anyone working on language packs for the game.

I've never translated anything before, but I guess if I find time I'd take a crack at the French localization. I figure I'll install a few RTS games in French to get a sense of what words are used for what English words in the context of a videogame, because I don't know words like "multiplayer," and a straight dictionary wouldn't help much for things like "ship." What files do I need to go through to make the necessary changes?

Also, I'm definitely not a native speaker. If anyone wants to help me out a little I'd love to work with you.

I'd help, but the only language I know is Java...

data\english\strings.txt. And... that's it. :)  Except for a few image files which have words on them (End Turn, Chat, and Menu buttons). Chat and Menu are easy enough to modify with an image editor; End Turn is more complicated. I actually didn't make the End Turn graphic, and it was provided to me as a flat file (no layers), so it'll be difficult to change unless the artist still has a layered version or can provide instructions and assets necessary to reproduce it. I'll try and get hold of him.

A French translation would be great! Looking forward to seeing it.

I've actually considered running strings.txt through Google Translate and using those translations as-is, in order to provoke some native speakers into correcting the inevitable automatic translation errors for me. ;D   I've never gotten around to it though, which is probably a good thing.

I am still (slow) working into Italian. I need some time
Fabio

Thanks for the update. There's no rush. :)

I had considered this - if I do a poor job, someone will be stingy enough to correct my mistakes. The machine translate might do a more efficient job in that case. :P

I still want to take a crack at it.

I expect you'll do a better job than the machine would. :)

This is getting ridiculous. I'm pulling my hair out here. ATTENTION FOREIGN PEOPLE: How do I run a program in NOT ENGLISH? I can find absolutely zero information about running programs in other localizations.

GAAAAAAAAh.

The short answer is that it depends. :)  Some games and apps ask you when you install them, for example. To change the language used for Steam's main UI, choose File->Settings, go to the Interface tab, and choose a language from the drop-down list. To change the language used for Steam games, right-click on the game, choose Properties, and switch to the Language tab.

Windows itself will let you type in different languages if you use the Regional and Language Options dialog in the Control Panel, but this usually doesn't change the appearance of GUIs.

If you want a fully localised version of some programs (including Windows) then sometimes you actually have to buy a localised edition. e.g. Spanish Windows is a separate product from English Windows.

Steam is easy, but Source games only download different voice actors' speech for different languages, the UI remains English. I don't own any other games on Steam that would come with a good localization.

I ended up buying a French copy of Age of Empires 1 on eBay. Which is awesome.

Tangentially related. (http://steamcommunity.com/id/MagicMinus)

Haha, Kumlekar pointed your new avatar out to me. Glorious.

I used to love Age of Empires. I sucked at it, but that didn't matter, we just played co-op. ;D

Here's a progress report. I only just today won the eBay bid, so I'll have the game in my hands in 3-10 business days, assuming the seller bothers to ship it in a polite amount of time. Since my last post, not much has actually happened on my end yet.

Thanks for the update. :)

My game came today. Hooray! Now I can get to it... Probably Monday. This weekend is packed. >_<

I'm having a lot of fun. I'm testing it by making a backup of the English strings.txt and modifying it directly. Only problem I'm having at the moment is accent marks like é seem to break the string at the moment. Also, when I start a game, it crashes with a UTF error. Attached is a shot of the main menu, you can see what it does to the word 'Succès,' which is the translation for 'Achievements' that Valve uses here (http://www.teamfortress.com/scoutupdate/energydrink_fr.htm).

Oh, and I only JUST realized what the & at the start of some of these strings does. That's what makes a hotkey, isn't it?

Glad to hear it. ;D


Make sure you're saving the file in UTF-8 encoding.


Man, that really... "succs". :D

Yeah, the font used on the main menu is missing characters with accent marks and so on. It affects all European translations in one way or other. I will fix that at some point, when I get serious about actually implementing translations into the official build of the game.


Yup. You can actually modify several of the in-game keyboard shortcuts by editing strings.txt. Some are hardcoded though, especially non-printable keys and "end turn".

(Sidenote: Time of spam post: 8:36pm. Time when I deleted the post and banninated the user account: 8:39pm. Spammers beware; here be moderators.)

Guess Notepad.exe won't be cutting it then.


Hmm. That might impede progress while I try to see how well my translations fit into the spaces. Is there any way to force the game to use another font? Or can I add temporary characters to it?

Heh, yeah, sorry. Wordpad (at least under XP) won't work either since its only Unicode option is UTF-16, not UTF-8.

I rather like TextPad (http://www.textpad.com/). Notepad++ is okay too, though geared towards programming.

The font is data/base/fonts/Futura.ttf, and you can replace or edit it at your leisure. Let me know if you do end up adding usable European language glyphs to it; I could use a hand with getting that done. :)

I've been using FontForge (http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/) for font editing. It's horrible to use, UI-wise, but it does the job.

hm Notepad++ is good for programming you say? I'll have to look it up.

Well, it's okay. It has decent features for reading and writing code, but it's not a fully-fledged integrated development environment. For people who don't like IDEs it may be a good choice (though I still like TextPad better, all-round, once I've modified its wacky default keyboard shortcuts).

hm, do you know if theres a way to use textpad to delete all instances of ()'s and the words inside of them?  I guess I could right some java code to do it, but that seems kinda a pain, and I'm not really understanding the help files.  I think there might be something to do something similar.

Use search-and-replace with regular expressions. (Open the Replace dialog and click Help and you'll find a link explaining regular expressions.) Something like searching for \(.*\) and replacing with nothing might do what you want. It might be too greedy though, in which case I guess \([^)]*\) or \([^\)]*\) might work better. Don't have it here in front of me so these expressions may not work; I generally have to undergo a bit of trial and error before I figure out the right syntax.

Regular expressions have been described as "write-only"; they can be written down and work, but once written down they're completely indecipherable!

Hallo,

i have the game translated into German.
From some details, it is completely German.
Is there still interest?


Hallo,

ich habe das Game ins Deutsche übersetzt.
Bis auf Kleinigkeiten ist es komplett deutsch.
Besteht noch Interesse?

Hello Atlan. That's great! Thank you for doing that. I am still working on official translations for the game. I've had professional translations done for French, German, Spanish, and Russian. So far everything works, except some strings are too long and overlap the UI. I'm slowly fixing those cases.

It would be good to have native speakers check the translations, to make sure they're good quality, and contribute alternate translations in some cases. The professional translators are good at their job, but they haven't played the game to check if their translations make sense in context.

If anyone is interested, I might release a public beta soon, including better language support and other bug fixes.

Here's the current work in progress, as a demo. Atlan, perhaps you could check the included German translation? I'd be very grateful for your help. If you'd like to contribute your translation as well, we could even combine the two translations into a better one.

http://www.inventivedingo.com/mayhemig/files/mayhemig-setup-demo-1.3beta1.exe

This is a beta version, so it may contain bugs. Bug reports are welcome. :)

Hallo Chris,

Fully translated are the solo and multiplayer part, page 1-3 of the help and a large part of the demo.
My problem is the integration "strings.txt",  it goes with me only if I replace the original.

At least with the German translations I can help.
Also if any, with other games.

Hallo Chris,

Komplett übersetzt sind der Solo und Multiplayer Teil, Seite 1-3 der Hilfe und ein großer Teil der Demo.
Mein Problem ist die Integration "strings.txt", es geht bei mir nur wenn ich die Original ersetze.

Zumindest bei den deutschen Übersetzungen kann ich helfen.
Auch so vorhanden, bei anderen Spielen.

Look at me.
How can I strings.txt send you.
Do you use dropbox?

Schaue es mir an.
Wie kann ich die strings.txt dir zusenden.
Nutzt du dropbox?

Ok I got it to me as far as possible viewed, unfortunately, it is in the demo is very limited.
I see me later strings.txt to, and compare.

In the new version, you can simply replace data/de/strings.txt and choose Deutsch in the Options, instead of having to replace data/english/strings.txt. :)

For sending strings.txt, I think email would be best, or you can send me a Private Message on this forum.

I will upload the full version beta within the week, so you can play it too. I just uploaded the demo first because it's easier. :) You have the game on Steam, right?

Hey, I could help with proofreading the french translation !

Happy New Year everyone, and apologies for the delay - I was on holiday in Thailand over the break.

That would be fantastic, thank you Flap :)

Atlan, thanks for sending me your translation, and apologies for not replying to it sooner. I haven't had the time to compare your version and the version in the game yet, but I will do so.

I've just now uploaded a beta of the new version to Steam, including the new languages (French, German, Spanish, and Russian). You can access it via Steam on the "betas" tab, and switch languages on the Options screen. If anyone would like to help me test the language support and doesn't have a Steam copy of the game, I can send you a Steam key or a non-Steam copy of the beta.

It's been a long time since the last patch, so I'm keen to get this one finished at last! There is a decent amount of work to do to get the localisation ready for release, unfortunately.

I would need that steam key, as I purchased MI before Steam existed...
Do you need some info to check that I own a copy ?

(Oh, by the way, can slip in the beta a tiny modification in AI, so it won't systematically leave planets with 0 ships...  :-[)

Hey Flap. Check your email :)

I've been wanting to improve the AI for a while. Unfortunately it's not a trivial thing to fix, because if it splits its forces too much then it will lose. So it needs to be smart about when it defends, and with how many ships. It is definitely possible to fix but it will take time, and right now I'm focused on getting the translations done! Maybe I'll have time to look at it later. :)