Translating ScummVM ?

md5 · Post by **md5** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:38 pm

But the point is not to change the strings in the executable. All the parts where strings are printed on screen have to be changed so that they reference some sort of an array, which can be loaded from an INI file. It's much easier than recompiling the whole project for each and every language.

saulob · Post by **saulob** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:42 pm

md5, that's what I said, sorry...

The implement something on the program, so it will read a language.txt file (or ini, or .anything).

That's the ideia, so, with a new version, no need to recompile like I did.

Thanks

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:53 pm

Sorry, folks, it's quite a lot more complicated than doing just that. If you are seriously interested in working on adding such a feature (and *not* in doing the actual translation work -- that can only start once the functionality has been implemented), I recommend that you start by researching on the subject! You should at least be aware about some of hte major existing libraries & standard file formats used in program localization. Also knowing about text encodings, Unicode and font rendering problems would be mandatory.

But: Please *first* read up on these, then once you did that, get in touch with the dev team. Any hacked up solution using e.g. a self-made ini file format and ignoring existing solutions w/o a good reason, and ignoring encoding and other issues, will likely just be ignored, resp. the patch rejected.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:19 pm

fingolfin, I covered the basic idea in my post. It was not my intention to produce a fully working solution with 3 lines of text, I was just trying to explain why merely changing the strings in the frontend code would be a bad idea

jvprat · Post by **jvprat** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:27 pm

What kind of solution do you have in mind? Reusing some kind of standard (e.g. gettext) or a custom made one?

Gettext could be relatively easily integrated (at least for the most common platforms), and free software translators feel quite comfortable with it.

I think the font rendering issues would be common, whatever translation backend is selected, and it could be worked in parallel (someone willing to work on this?

). This would also fix the file selection dialog inability to show utf names.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:59 pm

md5 wrote:fingolfin, I covered the basic idea in my post. It was not my intention to produce a fully working solution with 3 lines of text, I was just trying to explain why merely changing the strings in the frontend code would be a bad idea

Md5, fully understood, I just wanted to make sure no wrong impression is made on unknowing spectators

.

jvprat, you are welcome to work on this. See also the OpenTasks page on our Wiki. But before I spend time talking about this with somebody, I want to know that they at least did their basic homework and know what they are talking about -- I simply do not have the time to explaining all the basic details to somebody. (you do use the right keywords, at least, BTW -- so please do not take this as being directed towards you, it's other people I have in mind here, not restricted to this thread

UTF-8 encoding & matching font rendering might indeed be required, but doing that in a portable way is where it starts to become difficult. For this reason we are very very wary about potentially adding megabytes of code / data and tons of dependencies on external libraries. ScummVM still must run on relatively low end devices, after all.

Still, one idea is to make use of FreeType (1? 2?) and some existing unicode support library, and then combine this with e.g. gettext (or some other system, or even a hand rolled .ini file -- I do not exclude the possibility, but alternatives should be researched, and when a choice is made, at least a brief explanation why that choice was made would be important).

There is a lot more to say about this, potentially, but I am reluctant to spend much time writing all down when it's not even clear to me whether anybody ever will work on this... but feel free to ask clear specific questions and I'll try to answer them.

saulob · Post by **saulob** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:53 pm

Great, thank you guys, nice to see that it's getting help and support on that support

Nice.

But can anyone helpme on my compiling problems ? Does anyone read my post about it (with the translated scummvm picture) ? My errors ? Do I need another topic for it ?

Well, this is my topic after all, I started to get help on translating it

Thanks

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:41 pm

Herrscher wrote:Not only from english to german (and others), but also from english to english!

What?

Herrscher wrote:If somebody would convert that to HTML, with linkage and JavaScript for unfolding games each, this would be harder to maintain, I guess?! Maybe an automatic generator from a text file, or some kind of meta language?

You mean like the DocBook docs already started?

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 7:40 am

Herrscher wrote:Oh yes. The README _needs_ translation! Not only from english to german (and others), but also from english to english! I'm not surprised that NOBODY reads this 5.000.000 byte mess without inner linking or surpressable directions for games one doesn't even posess.

I am not surprised nobody reads it completely -- but I am surprised that so many people do not even read the first couple paragraphs or try a simple search for the name of the game they have problems with. Or, for that matter, read the first paragraph on scummvm.org before stomping in here and displaying that they obviously don't even know what ScummVM is about :-/.

Herrscher wrote:If somebody would convert that to HTML, with linkage and JavaScript for unfolding games each, this would be harder to maintain, I guess?! Maybe an automatic generator from a text file, or some kind of meta language?

As was already answered, we do have a DocBook version of it. The problem is that "somebody" did not manage to finish it yet. You know, if "somebody" wrote a DiscWorld engine, we'd all be happier, too. But apparently "somebody" is on vacation right now

.

Herrscher wrote:Also an adaptable GUI would be great, meaning: Gray out sections that don't apply to some games or make a wizard, that applies sane settings for > 90% of all gamers. Not everybody has a real MIDI-box built in and needs cruel audio options 98% of the gamers don't even understand (me included).

Ever heard of our feature request tracker? Please use it so your ideas do not get lost in the noise of the forums. BTW, the default settings for most (all?) games already should be sane, so if there are cases where you think this is not the case, please state them explicitly as part of your feature request. Thanks, I look forward to seeing this request and hope we can realize some of it.

Herrscher wrote:Also most will have a box powerful enough for hi-quality scalers (Ask via messagebox for CPU power - or even better: auto-detect (in wizard mode)).

This is a matter of taste, not of fear that we might block low end systems. There are many people who prefer the plain 2x scaler, or advmame2x (both have similar speeds, BTW); and many people who just don't like hq2x/hq3x. So a "wizard" is not the right way here, I believe, unless you can come up with a "taste detector". Although we could of course conduct a poll to find out which scaler people prefer, but even then there still would be people who need to select another one (and I am not sure whether polling on this forum is the right place, since the people who are here are a rather restricted and biased selection of all ScummVM users).

Herrscher wrote:Also a HOWTO would be great in different languages. Per JavaScript switching on/off of different games, including needed files, etc. even some general Windows stuff (I'd guess that some of the guys who love this slow gameplay of adventures don't know anything more than to open the browser).

You are more than welcome to help write HOWTOs. As for translations, we currently have no infrastructure to host any, but there are lots of people out there who make translations and host them on their own webspace, and we can link to them. So start writing & translating already

Herrscher wrote:Also I would guess that the average german "Baphomet's Fluch"-player doesn't even know that it is called "Broken Sword" in english-speaking countries.

There is a page on the wiki listing translated game names for that purpose. Of course it's not very useful, since people apparently mostly do not know how use "search", but I have no idea how to help those people anyway. But if you have specific ideas -- voice them, possibly on our feature request tracker, too.

Herrscher wrote:Also these putt-putt-games are plugging the datafiles section, too. If there aren't nearly as much players for that than for the other ones (which I guess), a seperate section would be appreciated.

Well, you can go to the page of each game and just select that game there. And on the global game data page, there is an index, and of course your browser let's you search, too (ouch, again I forgot that one needs a degree to use "search"

.

Do you think it would help to have the required game data files listed directly on each game's Wiki page?

Herrscher wrote:Okay, this stuff applies to Windows users mainly. Everybody strong enough to use Linux or buy a Mac will have some knowledge about that all.

Not sure I understood this remark, but maybe it's better that way...

Herrscher wrote:Also translated web pages were cool!
This of course does NOT include news or forum posts for god's sake.
But an introduction in PLAIN french/russian/... WHAT ScummVM is and what it is NOT could also help to defeat misunderstandings.
Maybe even just a minipage for different languages popping up.

Based on experience, I don't really believe it would, but then it likely wouldn't hurt either (well, a popup *would* hurt, though

.

Herrscher wrote:Just my 2 cent. BTW, this is not meant as any kind of harassment or something! I LOVE SVM!

Don't we all?

saulob · Post by **saulob** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:04 pm

fingolfin wrote:You are more than welcome to help write HOWTOs. As for translations, we currently have no infrastructure to host any, but there are lots of people out there who make translations and host them on their own webspace, and we can link to them. So start writing & translating already

That's what I like to hear

I got/found all the errors on my compiling... I'm right now at 80% (just need to finish the help on scumm games) on my Brazilian ScummVM ... it's nice to hear that you can link it... He (at ScummBR) will be able to host the files and take care of the files. Nice to hear.

When my translation is finished (0.9.1) I will post it.

Thanks

Post by **sev** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:43 am

saulob wrote:
fingolfin wrote:You are more than welcome to help write HOWTOs. As for translations, we currently have no infrastructure to host any
That's what I like to hear

I got/found all the errors on my compiling...

It seems that there is a misunderstanding here. Fingolfin means translations of documentation, not hacked ScummVM executables.

Eugene

saulob · Post by **saulob** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:23 pm

sev, hmmm.... okok only docs.. no ScummVM.

But, now talking about translating ScummVM (on topic!!!), clem said: "you could change the strings, then recompile", I tought it was a nice Idea...

So asking you devs, can I release a BR translated ScummVM ? It's already done (need just a revision).

Is it hacked executable ? I just change the strings, nothing more...

Thanks sev

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:52 pm

ScummVM is released under the GPL. As long as you comply to that license (which means you must release the source code), you can do whatever you like. Also we would appreciate if you clearly marked your binary as not being official, else we'll start getting bug reports for it, i.e. more work for us caused by something we didn't make.

saulob · Post by **saulob** » Thu May 03, 2007 10:25 pm

Ok, I finished and released my translation (Portuguese-BR).

Made a perfect install program, just like the official one, in NSIS... everything is translated, I mean, everything.

I really liked the final file

I add an portuguese Readme file (Leiame.txt) with all the info about my version, not official, where to get support for it... everything. I left all the original files (only replaced the exe) on it...

So, does my version is the first ScummVM translation out there ? Can the official ScummVM page link to my version ?

Thank you guys.

JonPro · Post by **JonPro** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:18 pm

I would like to translate ScummVM into Català (Catalan). And I would like to help programming the way on gettin ScummVM easilly "tranlateable" (using an XML file or something like this, you know...) too. And finaly I wonder how to translate subpictures and voices from "Beneath a steel sky". I'm planning to make a full translation into Català.

A lot of thanks guys!!