Author Topic: Translation to other languages?  (Read 26633 times)

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Offline LuuBluum

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #45 on: January 18, 2024, 12:10:56 PM »
Doing that would be neither quick nor easy.
 

Offline db48x

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #46 on: January 18, 2024, 12:52:23 PM »
Although I speak only English, I am generally in favor of localizing software. It’s a noble goal to spread the wealth so that everyone on Earth can benefit, even if we are only talking about a game. On the other hand, as a software engineer I do know the costs.

Each piece of UI text would have to be read from a file, or database table, to populate each window. I would have to write the code to do that, which is a huge task considering how much UI there is in Aurora.

To be fair, there are libraries you can lean on; it’s not like you’re the first person ever to localize a program. At most you just have to call a function that does all that work for you, and returns the localized string. And of course you then have to move the text into the default English localization.

Although I do not regularly program in C#, I recommend a library called [Fluent.Net](https://github.com/blushingpenguin/Fluent.Net). It is a port of [Project Fluent](https://projectfluent.org/) to C#. I’ve used Fluent localization before, and found it to be significantly better than the alternatives. The way it handles the complexities of date/time formatting, plurals, grammatical cases, and other nuances that are specific to individual languages without adding complexity to the core implementation or to other localizations is a breath of fresh air. My primary purpose for writing this post was to make this recommendation, both to you Steve as well as to everyone else who happens to read it. Project Fluent is the way to go.

But of course, no matter what library you use there is still the long, tedious, and error–prone process of actually converting hardcoded text into localizable text. There’s just no getting around that.

Also, the translated version might not fit into the same amount of space as the English version, so the UI would have to be able to cope with fields potentially being moved around to handle that, or someone would have decide on suitable abbreviations to fit the space (and to do that I would have to provide the space allowed for every single translated field or column).

Yes, or redesign the UI to be much more flexible. Since the size of almost every UI element can now vary, the position of every UI element must be recalculated based on how much space the previous elements are taking up. I’m not sure exactly how the code is written, but I do know that .net has a number of tools you can use to do this without writing the code to measure everything and reposition every element by hand. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/desktop/winforms/controls/layout?view=netdesktop-8.0, for example.

  • Likely, Steve would also have to write a lot of error checking/handling for the translations. Checking if a translation is complete before loading it, checking if a translation is the right length for the UI, etc. This kind of error checking is possibly the most tedious task of all since it is very difficult to abstract such things.
  • Any translations would have to be provided by fans. Similar to the open-source debate, this would put Steve in a role as a project manager instead of a hobbyist programmer which he has no interest in doing.
If you really want a translation, probably the best approach would be to look at something like AuroraPatch, which may let you access these things at the code level or at least give an idea how you could develop a translation mod.

There are ways we can limit the pain though. For example, incomplete localizations are usually handled by falling back to the English text, which is assumed to be complete. When a new feature is added to the game, the translations will not have been updated yet, so that feature’s text will get displayed in English. On the one hand that is a little suboptimal for the user of the translation, but on the other hand those translations are provided by volunteers who cannot reasonably held to any specific shipping schedule.

Most localization systems these days come with a web–based editor that can be used by volunteers to contribute localized text. There’s no reason to make Steve spend his own time hosting it, or even to make him include the translations in the Aurora download. He could just direct players who want translations to download them separately, same as is currently done with mods.

It would be interesting to see how far we could get with AuroraPatch before we tore our hair out; I suspect it would add an extra layer of tedium to the task.

There is no getting around the fact that there would be a lot of work that realistically only Steve can do. As Steve has always said, he is writing the software primarily for himself, and judges all work to be done based on how much he personally will benefit from it. It is easy to see that when judged on that metric, localization must rank pretty low on the list. Maybe one day Steve will be especially bored and have no other ideas to implement, but I doubt it.
 

Offline StarshipCactus

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #47 on: January 19, 2024, 02:19:46 AM »
I know quite a few gamers who first learnt English as a second language by playing video games or watching Youtube or even movies. There are a lot of benefits to learning a second language, for example Alzheimers is less common in people who speak more than one language.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #48 on: January 19, 2024, 07:32:25 AM »
And learning enough English to play Aurora is actually not that difficult since the text does not change.
 

Offline ProfiPRO100

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #49 on: January 20, 2024, 12:10:42 PM »
Maybe someone knows about a translator who can highlight the entire area of the screen and in real time he translated the text, or more specifically, replaced the text or phrase in the same place where the text was located with the translation I needed?

Or maybe someone knows how to get the browser translator extension to spread to other applications, such as Aurora?

Or any other ways to translate the screen in real time.  Translators are not suitable for highlighting small areas, they are at most suitable for games with dialogues in one place, no more.
 

Offline AlStar

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #50 on: January 20, 2024, 08:03:56 PM »
While I'm coming from a place of privilege, since I'm a native English speaker; I feel like a spot translation could probably work decently for this game.

As Garfunkel mentioned, the UI for any given screen doesn't change. Once you've figured your way around any given screen, you shouldn't need to re-translate things. Any researched items can be named in your own language (as far as I know - I haven't actually tried to name anything in non-Latin characters - worst case, you can name them something memorable.)

99% of reports are your leaders moving between assignments or gaining experience (which you can ignore). By selecting unique colors for events that actually matter, you can easily see at a glance what items actually need your input.

Don't get me wrong, having a full translation would be great - but Steve's not going to do it, and the way this game is set up, there's really no way for a 3rd-party to implement it.
 
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Offline ProfiPRO100

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #51 on: January 22, 2024, 11:18:06 AM »
Why not use the good neural network technologies of the 21st century to translate the game.  Yes, you can't completely automate the translation, but it will simplify the translation dozens of times.  For example, use neural networks like ChatGPT.  You throw off code fragments to him, explain to him specifically where the text for translation is in that fragment, and here he throws off the translated code to you.  I think this will save a lot of time.  What do you think?

I'm crying, I so want to comfortably play this masterpiece, but my geographical location does not allow me to do it easily (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
 

Offline Erik L

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #52 on: January 22, 2024, 11:56:38 AM »
Why not use the good neural network technologies of the 21st century to translate the game.  Yes, you can't completely automate the translation, but it will simplify the translation dozens of times.  For example, use neural networks like ChatGPT.  You throw off code fragments to him, explain to him specifically where the text for translation is in that fragment, and here he throws off the translated code to you.  I think this will save a lot of time.  What do you think?

I'm crying, I so want to comfortably play this masterpiece, but my geographical location does not allow me to do it easily (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

The issue there is then you'd have multiple executables for each language and more places to fix bugs.

The ideal solution is resource files where all of the UI text is tokenized and read from the specific language resource file. But that is best done in the very early stages of design rather than a late addition. Suffice it to say, unless Steve wills it, it won't happen.

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #53 on: January 22, 2024, 06:07:57 PM »
ProfiPRO100, clearly your English is good enough to play game. Your posts do not come across as machine translated ones. If there are bits of the game that are difficult to understand or translate, post here and we can help you out. Stick with it for a little while and you'll soon realize you've learned all the words necessary. It's not an adventure game or a visual novel after all, and you can clearly read Latin alphabet. When I was seven, I tried to play the old Hobbit text-based adventure game on Commodore 64 with an English dictionary in hand because I was such a huge fan of Tolkien. Suffice to say, I never finished the game. But Aurora is an easier hurdle to overcome.
 

Offline ProfiPRO100

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #54 on: January 23, 2024, 05:50:37 AM »
Quote from: Garfunkel link=topic=4615. msg168290#msg168290 date=1705968477
ProfiPRO100, clearly your English is good enough to play game.
Unfortunately, no matter how all my messages above look, they are all machine translations.  Without machine translation and my meager vocabulary, my text will be very unclear.  Yes, I understand something in English, I can understand 30-40 percent of the game, but again, with translation it would be pleasantly easier.

I feel like I'll have to learn English to play this masterpiece of the cosmic pentagram ")
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #55 on: January 23, 2024, 01:29:01 PM »
I feel like I'll have to learn English to play this masterpiece of the cosmic pentagram ")

Unfortunately it is just a fact that there are close to zero percent chance this game will ever be translated to another language. Steve already explained this many time. The game is a hobby project and the game will only get features which Steve himself use or utilize in the game. The rest of us is only there for the ride along.
 

Offline ProfiPRO100

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #56 on: January 24, 2024, 08:20:39 AM »
Yes, I've already figured it out... Whichever side is suitable for the possibility of translating the game, everything exactly depends on the desire of the developer, this is his decision and no one has the right to challenge it, this game is a hobby.
But the last thing I could think of to be able to translate Aurora is, for example, to find a trusted person from the forum, or perhaps Steve has someone in a circle of colleagues or close acquaintances who could be trusted with the code to translate into another language. Is there really no one to trust?
After all, can the game, its code, and name be patented? (or is Aurora already patented?), then trusting other people in the game code will be protected by the patent.
 

Offline Erik L

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #57 on: January 24, 2024, 04:22:20 PM »
Yes, I've already figured it out... Whichever side is suitable for the possibility of translating the game, everything exactly depends on the desire of the developer, this is his decision and no one has the right to challenge it, this game is a hobby.
But the last thing I could think of to be able to translate Aurora is, for example, to find a trusted person from the forum, or perhaps Steve has someone in a circle of colleagues or close acquaintances who could be trusted with the code to translate into another language. Is there really no one to trust?
After all, can the game, its code, and name be patented? (or is Aurora already patented?), then trusting other people in the game code will be protected by the patent.

Steve has not and will not let the code out. He's stated that previously.

Offline ProfiPRO100

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Re: Translation to other languages?
« Reply #58 on: January 25, 2024, 05:38:19 AM »
Of course, I'm sorry for the many questions about the topic of translation, I really wanted to promote this issue or somehow influence the further translation of the game.
It is better to learn another language, there are even more advantages in this, especially nowadays, in the same CIS countries, English is necessarily introduced into education from elementary grades. Even if I learned bad English, then there are exactly some basics, so there are no people with zero knowledge of English, there will be no strong problems with strong English mastery.