Random translation-related questions

[WWWWolf]

Sorry if these are dumb questions, I'm not very familiar with some technical details of the game. =) Basically, I'm translating U7BG to Finnish.

1) So... I take it "wuc" and "wud" are the obsolete tools and "ucc" and "ucxt" are the new, shiny tool for compiling Usecode assembly. The thing is, I used the ideas from SI-French to start up my translation database. Their method uses wud to decompile the Usecode, and now my code in database refers to stuff by the labels wud generates. Does ucxt generate the exact same label numbers when decompiling the exact same Usecode file? (Based on *extremely* cursory glance, it seems like it does.) What's the exact syntax for compiling ucxt-generated assembly? (Does ucc even do this?)

And exactly how does one use the translation table files - do they need to be compiled somehow? (As in, can I just dump my translation database into an XML file, point Exult there, and it works, or what?)

2) Appears that simply using expack to extract the contents of mainshp.flx, replacing files, rebuilding the file and sticking it in patch directory will not replace intro text, credits, etc. Which is weird. What should be done to fix this?

3) Are there any elegant ways to handle multi-line signs that doesn't involve re-programming the whole shebang? For example, in Trinsic there's a sign that spans four lines: "The Avenue of Fellowship" (each word on its own string). In Finnish, this would be in two words: "Veljeskunnan Puistokatu". Fits nicely on two lines. If I leave the unneeded strings empty (''), the thing does compile, but the sign is always four lines high and the text is always on top end of the sign, which looks silly. Putting a single space on lines above and below (' ') seems to work, but leaves the sign a little bit more spacious than needed. Is there a way to make the signs shrink without decompiling and reprogramming the entire huge sign function?
(A hack in the engine side for the latter would involve simply ignoring lines that are empty when drawing signs...)

[DK]

Hi WWWWolf,

1) I'm not quite familiar with the "full" syntax of ucxt; I've used the old "wuc & wud", sorry.

2) Have you tried to overwrite the original mainshp.flx file with the translated one?
And, remember that some intro/ending text is in exultmsg.txt.

3) We have no problem with signs; have you tried to leave the first and the latter lines empty?
Or, yes, I think you must "hack" the sign function...

We already have finished the translation of U7BG, so we're glad to give help to other teams who are making translation of this game.

DK

P.S. Have you tried my little U7Editor
http://ultima.oldgamesitalia.com/u7tool/
maybe can be useful.

[Sleepy Emp]

Hey, Wolf.

We've finished the Russian translation of U7BG (thanks for the tool, DK) so we can answer some of your questions.

1. We used U7Editor for translation, so most of the time there was no need to use other tools.

2. If we remember correctly, some of the files in the mainshp.flx archive when unpacked have text strings at the beginning of the file (font markers or something like that), that won't compile. Remove the text and it will compile nicely.

3. We used UCXT to edit the signs. Thus we had complete and easy control over the amount of lines we needed.

[Kevin]

I hope that this will encourage others to work on translations. e.g. there's still no German Serpent Isle version.

-Kevin

[WWWWolf]

Sometimes it works if I put ' ' in the line:

http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwol ... d_sign.jpg

Sometimes it doesn't, because there's too few lines:

http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwol ... d_sign.jpg

Hmm... I suppose I can hack *something* into this thing (like removing the empty lines when replacing the text in assembly files during the compilation phase).

Thanks for the U7editor suggestion, but regrettably I run Linux. =) I use a translation tool I wrote myself.

Also, I currently put mainshp.flx in patch directory; I haven't created a new game or anything, I just use the mod infrastructure for this stuff. Wonder if this is a key issue...