Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Internationalization

[Artur Biesiadowski <abies@xxxxxxxxx>]

David Pfitzner wrote:

> 
> The thing is that modpacks often _will_ change names;
> eg, the Ancients modpack changes lots of names (most?);
> so would a fantasy modpack; even the Civ1 ruleset has some
> different names.
> 
> Not translating the new names is certainly an option, but
> if someone can be bothered to translate them, then a better
> option is to provide a mechanism by which they can, which is
> why I thought allowing a list of translated names in the
> ruleset would be better (more general).


But at the same time some amount of names do not change. If smoebody
will come with type fix for example it would have to be propagated
through all modpacks instead of one central file.

I'm actually thinking about writing something like global dictionary
with civilization terms. <joda>In central repository all translations
would be kept </joda>. If somebody wants to translate a modpack, he can
provide additonal translations to main civilization file.

Let's take ancients modpack. Let's imagine that author wants to provide
two rulesets - first for civ1 and second for civ2 style of combat (as it
is in main freeciv). You way would require to keep all translations in
both files - increasing size and adding extra work during maintance (you
need to correct both files in same way). I agree that adding additonal
language is just matter of copy and paste, but bugfixing is more
tiresome. Also imagine person wanting to provide translation to language
X. This person would to translate main civ and 5 modpacks. With central
repository he just gather all names requiring translation (sort/uniq or
by hand) and provide localized names for central repository inside main
freeciv. No need to contact 5 modpack authors to modify their files. No
need to duplicate work of translation "Settler" 6 times. Etc, etc.

If we are at subject of translations, I would think about providing
_english_ translation. This would allow using codenames for some things
(like Barracks1, Barracks2 etc) at the same time translatiog them top
correct ones (either Barracks all the time, or GunPowder Barracks etc)

Artur