Program translation

[KoRniFeX]

Hello !

Well, my name (in RPGs) is Kornelious "koRniFeX" Inflexus, and in real life, I come from France.

Your program is really interesting, but it's all in english.
There is a lot of french people who are interested in this.
But it's all in english !

So, you should translate it in different languages, you would see lots of strangers comin' too learn a bit more !

It's just an idea, but, you know, I've said it because I'm french :D

I'll comme back later to see responses ;)

[Nico]

Hello !

Well, my name (in RPGs) is Kornelious "koRniFeX" Inflexus, and in real life, I come from France.

Your program is really interesting, but it's all in english.
There is a lot of french people who are interested in this.
But it's all in english !

So, you should translate it in different languages, you would see lots of strangers comin' too learn a bit more !

It's just an idea, but, you know, I've said it because I'm french :D

I'll comme back later to see responses ;)

Hi I'm Nick from Italy.

I agree with koRniFeX, as me and some other DMs where looking exactly for this.. but we have a language issue.

Actually, if you are looking for translators.. :)

Take care.

[DarkStar]

There's not much to translate, besides the character sheet and you can do this on your own whenever you like. SRD is in English, it was copied over from Wizard's materials and as such I highly doubt it will be translated (unless you do this yourself and I don't know about legal issues (not again, sigh) doing that).

I don't quite see the problem...

[Azrael Nightstar]

The SRD can be legally translated, and in fact I can't imagine it isn't available in several languages already, perhaps from Wizards themselves. Putting a non-english version into FG-usable format would be no different than what Smite did with the english version. As DarkStar mentioned, at the least the character sheets, labels, and such could be translated, and I think if you guys (or any other multi-lingual folks) are willing to put work into making FG more accessible, it's a great idea.

That said, I doubt we'll see an "official" version in another language any time soon. If the program itself were to be translated, it would require a lot of work with the source code, which would have to be done by Smite, as editing the source for the FG program is NOT legal. Coming out with a version in another language would also require support in that language. Perhaps when FG is bigger that would be something Smite would want to do, but for the moment some user-created translation would be great :)

[Crusader]

If the program itself were to be translated, it would require a lot of work with the source code

Well actually, no. Everything that you see on the screen in FG is part of the GUI defined by the ruleset. Translate the ruleset, make some new graphics for those parts where the text is actually an image, and there you go.

[Azrael Nightstar]

Well actually, no. Everything that you see on the screen in FG is part of the GUI defined by the ruleset. Translate the ruleset, make some new graphics for those parts where the text is actually an image, and there you go.

Yes, DarkStar covered the process of converting just the UI in his reply. This would be easy enough and would amount to translating a ruleset for whatever game you were interested in.

I was talking about converting the entire program, meaning commands, parameters, error messages, etc. These things are built into the program itself; rulesets do not affect them, and changing them would mean working with Smite's source code.

[Crusader]

Ah, right. Sorry! You're right about that.

[DarkStar]

There's just a dozen or so commands, don't tell me that people can't use FG because of that. It's so basic, I don't even think that having a few language versions is worth the work (you have to deploy several different executables or implement a solution with external language files and then you have to maintain all that). Just grab an English-Whatever dictionary and lookup the words, it won't take you longer than 20mins.

[Azrael Nightstar]

No problem, Crusader, I can see why you might've overlooked that because DarkStar makes a good point; I mostly mentioned translating the program for completeness's sake. Other than making ruleset modding a bit easier for non-english speakers and making the error messages more useful to them, it wouldn't make much sense to do.

Kornifex or Nico, or anyone else with friends interested in FG but not good with english, if you need some help/guidance with making a ruleset in French/German/Italian/Spanish etc, drop a line. Might be nice to have one made for when people come looking. :)

[Ged]

Translation of the software itself (error messages, load menu, help, menu items, ...) is not on the list of features to be implemented any time soon. Why? Because most of what you see is the ruleset and respecting copyrights, we cannot release different language versions; thus we cannot provide a whole consistent translation. The rulesets can, of course, be translated to own use (a lot of work!), but quite surely, by the time that is done, the menu texts etc. are effortless reading ;)

If somebody manages to translate, say the whole d20 ruleset, let us know, and we'll reconsider making support for internationalization. Such a heroic attempt might well be rewarded - no promises though :D