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8 <head>
9 <title>Internationalization</title>
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13 <body>
14 <h1>Internationalization</h1>
15
16 <p>dopewars uses the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/manual/gettext/">GNU
17 gettext</a> utilities for internationalization (i18n) support. This allows the
18 software to be translated into the local language at runtime - run dopewars in
19 the UK and it'll talk to you in English, but run it in Germany and it'll talk
20 to you in German. This relies on translators to translate the program's output
21 into each language beforehand, of course, and so native language speakers to
22 carry out this task are always needed!</p>
23
24 <ul>
25 <li><a href="#running">Running dopewars with i18n support</a></li>
26 <li><a href="#adding">Adding a new translation</a></li>
27 <li><a href="#dopespec">dopewars specifics</a></li>
28 <li><a href="#updating">Updating a translation for a new dopewars
29 version</a></li>
30 <li><a href="#current">Currently available translations</a></li>
31 </ul>
32
33 <h2><a id="running">Running dopewars with i18n support</a></h2>
34 <p>i18n is only included in versions of dopewars later than 1.4.8. By default,
35 "Native Language Support" is compiled in; binary installations should be
36 already set up for i18n. When compiling dopewars from source code, the
37 <tt>configure</tt> script should detect whether your system can support
38 GNU gettext. To disable i18n,
39 pass the <tt>--disable-nls</tt> option to the <tt>configure</tt> script.</p>
40
41 <p>When you run your installed copy of dopewars, it should detect your "locale"
42 automatically and talk to you in your native language. If this does not happen,
43 the following are some possible explanations:-</p>
44 <ul>
45 <li>dopewars cannot find the locale-specific language file - by default, stored
46 under /usr/local/share/locale/</li>
47 <li>Your language is not yet supported - why not add it yourself?</li>
48 <li>Your system does not have locale support.</li>
49 <li>On a Windows system, you need to select the language from the relevant
50 section of Control Panel (or set the LANG environment variable, below). i18n
51 under Windows is only supported by version 1.5.3 and later.</li>
52 <li>You haven't set an environment variable to specify your locale (usually
53 this is done automatically). For example, if you're using the <tt>bash</tt>
54 shell and want a German translation, the command "<tt>export LANG=de_DE</tt>"
55 should ensure that dopewars (and all other i18n-aware programs launched from
56 this shell) will use the German language.</li>
57 </ul>
58
59 <h2><a id="adding">Adding a new translation</a></h2>
60 <p>Translation files are kept in the subdirectory <tt>po/</tt> of the dopewars
61 source code distribution. They are named by
62 <a href="http://userpage.chemie.fu-berlin.de/diverse/doc/ISO_639.html">
63 2-letter language codes</a> followed by the <tt>.po</tt> extension - for
64 example, the German translation is stored in the file <tt>po/de.po</tt>.
65 They are simple text files, consisting of lists of the original English string
66 (labelled by "msgid") followed by the translated string (labelled by
67 "msgstr").</p>
68
69 <p>To add a new translation, first
70 <a href="installation.html">install dopewars from source code</a>. This will
71 generate the reference file <tt>dopewars.pot</tt> in the <tt>po</tt>
72 subdirectory. Then, copy <tt>dopewars.pot</tt> to your language-specific
73 <tt>.po</tt> file in the
74 <tt>po/</tt> directory, and fill in the "msgstr" entries. Once this is done,
75 edit the <tt>configure.ac</tt> file in the top dopewars directory to add your
76 language code to the <tt>ALL_LINGUAS</tt> variable. Then run <tt>autoconf</tt>
77 to rebuild the <tt>configure</tt> script, before making and installing dopewars
78 as usual. The new translation should now be available. Once this is complete,
79 please <a href="https://github.com/benmwebb/dopewars/pulls">open a pull
80 request</a> to have the translation included in the next dopewars version.</p>
81
82 <p>Please note that some strings are <b>format strings</b> containing the %
83 character. These are used in the program code for substituting numbers and
84 other pieces of text into the string - these substitutions are are performed
85 using variables which are specified in the <b>same order</b> as the %
86 characters in the format string. For example, the following format string
87 substitutes in a string (%s) and an integer number (%d):-<br />
88 <tt>"String '%s' has %d characters"</tt><br />
89 The string and number are specified in order in the code. This is problematic
90 if your translation changes the order - for example, a valid German translation
91 of the string would be<br />
92 <tt>"%d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette '%s'"</tt><br />
93 Now the number and string are specified in the wrong order, and this will
94 probably crash the program on running! To fix this, use the special notation<br />
95 <tt>"%2$d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette '%1$s'"</tt><br />
96 (i.e. replace <b>%x</b> with <b>%n$x</b> where <b>n</b> is the index that the
97 format specifier "should" have, starting from 1.)</p>
98
99 <h2><a id="dopespec">dopewars specifics</a></h2>
100 <ul>
101 <li>When questions are asked in the curses (text mode) client, the keys that
102 you are allowed to press in reply are stored in a string. This should be
103 translated to suitable keys in your language, in the <b>same</b> order as
104 the original - e.g. "<tt>YN</tt>" (for Yes/No) could be translated in German
105 to "<tt>JN</tt>" (for Ja/Nein).<p /></li>
106
107 <li>When a dopewars server asks a client a question, the valid replies are
108 sent at the start of the message, followed by a "<tt>^</tt>" character. These
109 replies define the dopewars protocol, and so should <b>not</b> be
110 translated - they will prevent clients and servers from talking to each other
111 properly. So for example, the string "<tt>YN^Would you like to visit %s?</tt>"
112 should be translated as you wish, but with the "<tt>YN^</tt>" at the start
113 left unchanged.<p /></li>
114
115 <li>The <tt>%txx</tt> notation is used for "translated strings". This notation
116 is exactly equivalent to the standard C "<tt>%s</tt>" notation for a string,
117 and does essentially the same thing, except that the two-letter code which
118 follows the <tt>%t</tt> is used to select an "alternative form" of the word
119 - for example, your language may have different words for "bitch" depending
120 on whether the word is the subject or the object of the sentence. You are
121 free to translate <tt>%txx</tt> to use the most appropriate form of the word.
122 If you wish to capitalise the first letter of the word (as used in English for
123 titles, etc.) then use "<tt>%T</tt>" rather than "<tt>%t</tt>".<p />
124
125 <p>Obviously dopewars cannot guess what your "alternative forms" are; you must
126 specify them yourself. Essentially, when setting a string in a dopewars
127 configuration file (or the defaults, which are set in dopewars.c) alternative
128 forms can be added by alternating two-letter codes and alternative forms after
129 the original word, separating them by _ (underline) symbols. For example,<br />
130 <tt>Names.Bitch = "bitch_no_bitcho_ac_bitche"</tt><br />
131 specifies two alternative forms for "bitch", identified by the "<tt>no</tt>"
132 and "<tt>ac</tt>" codes. You can then use "bitcho" anywhere that "bitch" is
133 normally used by translating the relevant string as "<tt>%tno</tt>" (and to
134 get "bitche" use "<tt>%tac</tt>"). If you specify a two letter code
135 in the translation that you haven't given an alternative form for, the
136 default word ("bitch") will be used. In the original English, "<tt>%tde</tt>"
137 is used for this purpose, but there is nothing special about the "<tt>de</tt>"
138 code - you can use it yourself if you like, and you can use as many
139 different two-letter codes as you want to.</p>
140
141 <p>For a good working example of the "<tt>%tde</tt>" notation, see the
142 Norwegian Nynorsk translation (<tt>nn.po</tt>).</p>
143
144 <p>Additionally, prices in dopewars are automatically formatted into strings by
145 means of the %P notation, and comments can be introduced into format strings
146 by means of the %/.../ notation. Everything between the two / characters is
147 not printed. This is used to "qualify" some strings for translation, and the
148 %/.../ can be left out of the translated string if desired (the comment does
149 not need to be translated).</p>
150 </li>
151
152 </ul>
153
154 <h2><a id="updating">Updating a translation for a new dopewars
155 version</a></h2>
156
157 <p>New versions of dopewars will often change what is printed to the user, and
158 so may may require changes to the translation. To update an existing
159 translation, change into the <tt>po</tt> subdirectory of the dopewars
160 source code, and do a "<tt>make dopewars.pot</tt>". This creates the
161 <tt>dopewars.pot</tt> file, which lists the strings that need translating.
162 Next, create a new translation file from your "old" translation file (we'll
163 assume it's called <tt>de.po</tt>) and <tt>dopewars.pot</tt> with the
164 <tt>msgmerge</tt> command:-<br />
165 <tt>msgmerge -o newfile de.po dopewars.pot</tt><br />
166 Examine this new file <tt>newfile</tt> for translations that need updating
167 (a search for "fuzzy" should find most of them) and then overwrite your old
168 translation with the new one:<br />
169 <tt>mv newfile de.po</tt><br />
170 Rebuild and reinstall dopewars, and the new translations should become
171 available. Again, it is deeply appreciated if such updated files are
172 contributed to the main dopewars distribution!</p>
173
174 <h2><a id="current">Currently available translations</a></h2>
175
176 <ul>
177 <li>French (<tt>fr.po</tt>)
178 <ul>
179 <li>Maintained by: leonard</li>
180 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.2</b> or later</li>
181 </ul>
182 </li>
183
184 <li>French (Canada) (<tt>fr_CA.po</tt>)
185 <ul>
186 <li>Maintained by: François Marier</li>
187 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.11</b> or later</li>
188 </ul>
189 </li>
190
191 <li>German (<tt>de.po</tt>)
192 <ul>
193 <li>Maintained by: Benjamin Karaca, Eric Steiner, Tobias Mathes</li>
194 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.0</b> or later</li>
195 </ul>
196 </li>
197
198 <li>English (Britain) (<tt>en_GB.po</tt>)
199 <ul>
200 <li>Maintained by: Ben Webb</li>
201 <li>Version required: <b>1.6.1</b> or later</li>
202 </ul>
203 </li>
204
205 <li>Polish (<tt>pl.po</tt>)
206 <ul>
207 <li>Maintained by: Slawomir Molenda</li>
208 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.0</b> or later</li>
209 </ul>
210 </li>
211
212 <li>Portuguese (Brazil) (<tt>pt_BR.po</tt>)
213 <ul>
214 <li>Maintained by: Hugo Cisneiros, Bruno Lopes</li>
215 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.0</b> or later</li>
216 </ul>
217 </li>
218
219 <li>Norwegian Nynorsk (<tt>nn.po</tt>)
220 <ul>
221 <li>Maintained by: Åsmund Skjæveland</li>
222 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.7</b> or later</li>
223 </ul>
224 </li>
225
226 <li>Spanish (<tt>es.po</tt> or <tt>es_ES.po</tt>)
227 <ul>
228 <li>Maintained by: Quique</li>
229 <li>Version required: <b>1.5.8</b> or later</li>
230 </ul>
231 </li>
232 </ul>
233
234 <hr />
235 <ul>
236 <li><a href="index.html">Main index</a></li>
237 </ul>
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239 Last update: <b>09-12-2020</b><br />
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