Translations support

[IvanSavenko]

Meta-issue to organize progress, will be done in series of PR to avoid large amount of changes at once

Progress

• 1293

• 1318

• 1329

• 1399

• 1419

• 1409

• 1459

• 1466

• 1511

Documentation https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi/wiki/Translations

Functionality:

• [x] Implement translations for Launcher using Qt translator
• [x] Implement translations for Map Editor using Qt translator
• [x] Allow mods to define mod information (e.g. name/description) with localization to current language of Launcher
• [x] Provide mechanism to translate data from H3 files via mods that is better than direct editing of H3 files
• [x] Integrate existing translate.json into H3 translation support
• [ ] Integrate strings from battlefields.json into translation support
• [x] Integrate .h3m and .h3c files into translation support
• • [x] Integrate strings from mapOverrides.json into translation support
• [x] Integrate game objects into translation support:
• • [x] Artifacts
• • [x] Creatures
• • [x] Heroes & hero classes
• • [x] Skills
• • [x] Spells
• • [x] Adventure map objects
• • [x] Towns & factions
• • [x] Terrains
• [ ] Mods support:
• • [x] Allow mods to translate H3 files
• • [x] Allow mods to translate new objects
• • [x] Allow mods to translate h3m maps
• • [x] Allow mods to translate h3c campaigns
• • [x] Allow mods to translate vcmi maps
• • [ ] Allow mods to translate vcmi campaigns
• • [x] Integrate translations into mod validation - detect untranslated strings for specified languages
• [ ] Multiplayer support - ensure that client & server can run with different languages
• • [ ] Multiplayer support - base game texts
• • [ ] Multiplayer support - game objects
• • [x] Multiplayer support - maps
• [x] Auto-detection of H3 encoding
• [x] Add "Welcome" page to Launcher
• • [x] Add selection of preferred language
• • [x] Add validation of H3 data
• • [x] Add option to copy H3 data
• • [x] Auto-detect language of H3 data
• • [x] Add propositions to install starting mods?
• • [x] Add links to community & feedback pages?
• [ ] (optional) remove old-style access from CGeneralTextHandler

Languages:

• [x] English: already available
• [x] Ukrainian: Complete (by me)
• [x] German: Complete (done by Laserlicht)
• [x] Polish: Complete (by dydzio)
• [ ] Russian: None
• [ ] Any other languages?

Translation assistance If there is anyone willing to provide missing/new translation ask me here or on Slack. What I will need is following:

• Translation of existing vcmi strings from here (they may already be translated somewhere in some mod)
• Translation of launcher strings. If you have Qt Creator installed you can open file from this directory in Qt Linguist for nicer UI. Or you can edit this file manually.
• Translation of Map Editor - files for Qt Linguist can be found here

[heroesiiifan]

Hi @IvanSavenko

First of all, thank you for your effort of a better language support.

For german-translation I have a few questions:

• how is it thought in the future with the translate.json? Do we maintain the foreign languages directly in the source of VCMI? Have a current file (Can be intigrated into VCMI with pleasure). But with the current state it can't load via a mod (don't know why though).
• What about the bonuses_texts.json? Doesn't it need to be replaced as well?
• In my case I would leave the translated TXT as they are, they should still load without problems (regardless of the new option), right?
• Can we make it so that when you select "German" in the launcher the translation mod is automatically installed? Or how should we do it for cases without official translation?

[IvanSavenko]

Hi.

how is it thought in the future with the translate.json?

Current plan - is to have translate.json for all languages in vcmi repo, specifically - as part of integrated "vcmi" mod. Since I am planning to add support for translation of mods, it makes sense to reuse this functionality and integrate translation of vcmi strings into vcmi mod and have them auto-selected based on language selected by user/autodetected by game.

(Yes, format of translate.json was changed in recent PR, so it won't load as it. I already have fixed version for German and few other languages, but have not uploaded it anywhere yet)

What about the bonuses_texts.json? Doesn't it need to be replaced as well?

Yes, eventually. I still have quite long list of things to do for translations. Current plan is to merge its content into translate.json (and any other stray untranslated strings we have in vcmi) I see this file in your mod, so will integrate it into translation once I get to this part.

In my case I would leave the translated TXT as they are, they should still load without problems (regardless of the new option), right?

Yes, they can load without problems. In fact, with #1399 game will also automatically detect German install (whether in form of your mod or some custom H3 install).

Whether you switch to this "new option" is up to you. Generally speaking, conversion should be trivial. VCMI will be able to generate json output of loaded text which you can copy-paste into a mod.

Main reasoning behind this option was:

• H3 txt files have rather specific format, which inexperienced translator can be easily break
• Translation of maps & campaigns is impossible without providing entire map/campaign & you need to search for translatable strings all over the map.
• In multiplayer, all texts from map will be taken from host player who may use different language.

Can we make it so that when you select "German" in the launcher the translation mod is automatically installed? Or how should we do it for cases without official translation?

Yes, I am considering this. Although not fully automatic. My current plan is to have user select desired language of vcmi itself (e.g. for Launcher) and, if language of detected H3 install is different - provide option to install translation mod in one click, without search through repository.

[heroesiiifan]

I've tested the Mod-Translation.

Seems to work without problems: https://github.com/vcmi-mods/cathedral-town/pull/1

[IvanSavenko]

Not exactly fully supported yet - I'd like to have some "validation", that will automatically report strings to translate. Still, great to see its first usage. Glad that it works. Haven't tested much apart from UI texts.

[heroesiiifan]

Hi @IvanSavenko: I've brought the german translation up to date.

I have created a vcmi-1.2 branch. Is there actually a way that the mod manager in the development build uses this one and not on the master?

Otherwise I still have a few questions:

• if I have understood correctly, then the H3M support is complete? I get with convert txt unfortunately only a few strings out (map name, decriptions, etc.), but for example no events. How do I get that?
• H3C is not supported yet, right?
• Can I specify in the mod that the images/other assets are also only loaded when german is selected (e.g. place it under the "german" key)? Would be great, then everything would be in German only when German is selected as the language in vcmi (switching to english without deinstalling the mod).

[IvanSavenko]

Hi @heroesiiifan . I think we're using this file for mods that require daily builds version: https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi-mods-repository/blob/develop/beta.json Once you have your mod in there you can add this URL as second mod repository in settings.

As for your questions:

• H3M support itself is done, but yeah, no way to export without modifying source code. Will add h3m export to convert txt
• H3C - untested. Strictly speaking - it may work since h3c is largely collection of h3m maps, but not something I tested yet and so far no way to generate translations using existing h3c files.
• Current plan (hopefully will implement next week) is that mods of type "translation" will be only active if currently selected language matches mod language. So as long as the game views your mod as "translation to german" it will automatically enable/disable it based on selected language,

And by the way - please add "language" : "german" into your mod.json. This field will be used to detect translations and as a way to detect encoding of h3m/h3c/txt/fnt files (this part not applicable to German though - looks like English & German use same encoding anyway)

[heroesiiifan]

Hi @IvanSavenko

* H3M support itself is done, but yeah, no way to export without modifying source code. Will add h3m export to `convert txt`
* H3C - untested. Strictly speaking - it may work since h3c is largely collection of h3m maps, but not something I tested yet and so far no way to generate translations using existing h3c files.

Would be really nice if we could export these too.

Yes, the H3C are essentially H3M. Except that there is an additional campaign description and name.

And by the way - please add "language" : "german" into your mod.json. This field will be used to detect translations and as a way to detect encoding of h3m/h3c/txt/fnt files (this part not applicable to German though - looks like English & German use same encoding anyway)

done :)

[IvanSavenko]

Would be really nice if we could export these too.

Yep, planned, worst-case scenario - will be done for 1.2.1

All in all my TODO list so far is:

• Do not load translation mods if language selected by player is different from mod language. Meaning, as long as player has German Translation mod and this mod was not explicitly disabled by player it will be only loaded if game language set to German.
• Propose to install translation mod during initial setup if detected H3 language is different from language selected by player. Meaning, if player has English H3, but selects German during setup, he should be offered to install German Translation mod.
• Add similar option whenever player changes language in settings.
• Integrate text export from h3m into "convert txt".
• Integrate text export from h3c into "convert txt". Ensure that h3c translations work.
• Show list of languages supported by mods in Launcher
• Find English strings embedded in vcmi json's and make sure that they are translated. Example: creature bank names.

More long-term TODO's, potentially for 1.3:

• Translation support for VCMI map format.
• Translation support for multiplayer - game should select all texts, both from H3M (e.g. events) and from game state (e.g. hero/creature names) based on language of local player, not language of host player.

[tytannial]

Hi, is there any plan to make a converter or importer for game locale file, which imports the txt/map files, and encode them with utf8. Also provide an option using utf8 as game encoding.

[kambala-decapitator]

user reported issue with Russian language in 1.2.1/1.3: https://forum.vcmi.eu/t/russian-thread/357/837?u=kambala (check also the full conversation)

[IvanSavenko]

@kambala-decapitator Not sure what's going on there...

According to your log - he has English text files - pretty much exact match. Not Chinese or Russian. Logs should say something like "Comparing to Engilsh: 0.0002" - value closest to 0 is the one that is detected.

However it is possible that his H3 copy has different files layout that vcmi is not aware of and because of that localized text files were not found. For example in English version .txt files are in 'H3bitmap.lod' but in Polish they are in 'h3abp_bm.lod', which vcmi was ignoring before fix.

[heroesiiifan]

Another small addition for the todo: Support VCMP Campaign format

Even if I don't know if this is already actively in use.

[heroesiiifan]

Maybe also add moat names to english.json instead of moats.json. To able to do a clear translation.