dopewars uses the GNU gettext utilities for internationalization (i18n) support. This allows the software to be translated into the local language at runtime - run dopewars in the UK and it'll talk to you in English, but run it in Germany and it'll talk to you in German. This relies on translators to translate the program's output into each language beforehand, of course, and so native language speakers to carry out this task are always needed!
i18n is only included in versions of dopewars later than 1.4.8. By default, "Native Language Support" is compiled in; binary installations should be already set up for i18n. When compiling dopewars from source code, the configure script should detect whether your system can support GNU gettext. To disable i18n, pass the --disable-nls option to the configure script.
When you run your installed copy of dopewars, it should detect your "locale" automatically and talk to you in your native language. If this does not happen, the following are some possible explanations:-
Translation files are kept in the subdirectory po/ of the dopewars source code distribution. They are named by 2-letter language codes followed by the .po extension - for example, the German translation is stored in the file po/de.po. They are simple text files, consisting of lists of the original English string (labelled by "msgid") followed by the translated string (labelled by "msgstr").
To add a new translation, first install dopewars from source code. This will generate the reference file dopewars.pot in the po subdirectory. Then, copy dopewars.pot to your language-specific .po file in the po/ directory, and fill in the "msgstr" entries. Once this is done, edit the configure.ac file in the top dopewars directory to add your language code to the ALL_LINGUAS variable. Then run autoconf to rebuild the configure script, before making and installing dopewars as usual. The new translation should now be available. Once this is complete, please open a pull request to have the translation included in the next dopewars version.
Please note that some strings are format strings containing the %
character. These are used in the program code for substituting numbers and
other pieces of text into the string - these substitutions are are performed
using variables which are specified in the same order as the %
characters in the format string. For example, the following format string
substitutes in a string (%s) and an integer number (%d):-
"String '%s' has %d characters"
The string and number are specified in order in the code. This is problematic
if your translation changes the order - for example, a valid German translation
of the string would be
"%d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette '%s'"
Now the number and string are specified in the wrong order, and this will
probably crash the program on running! To fix this, use the special notation
"%2$d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette '%1$s'"
(i.e. replace %x with %n$x where n is the index that the
format specifier "should" have, starting from 1.)
Obviously dopewars cannot guess what your "alternative forms" are; you must
specify them yourself. Essentially, when setting a string in a dopewars
configuration file (or the defaults, which are set in dopewars.c) alternative
forms can be added by alternating two-letter codes and alternative forms after
the original word, separating them by _ (underline) symbols. For example,
Names.Bitch = "bitch_no_bitcho_ac_bitche"
specifies two alternative forms for "bitch", identified by the "no"
and "ac" codes. You can then use "bitcho" anywhere that "bitch" is
normally used by translating the relevant string as "%tno" (and to
get "bitche" use "%tac"). If you specify a two letter code
in the translation that you haven't given an alternative form for, the
default word ("bitch") will be used. In the original English, "%tde"
is used for this purpose, but there is nothing special about the "de"
code - you can use it yourself if you like, and you can use as many
different two-letter codes as you want to.
For a good working example of the "%tde" notation, see the Norwegian Nynorsk translation (nn.po).
Additionally, prices in dopewars are automatically formatted into strings by means of the %P notation, and comments can be introduced into format strings by means of the %/.../ notation. Everything between the two / characters is not printed. This is used to "qualify" some strings for translation, and the %/.../ can be left out of the translated string if desired (the comment does not need to be translated).
New versions of dopewars will often change what is printed to the user, and
so may may require changes to the translation. To update an existing
translation, change into the po subdirectory of the dopewars
source code, and do a "make dopewars.pot". This creates the
dopewars.pot file, which lists the strings that need translating.
Next, create a new translation file from your "old" translation file (we'll
assume it's called de.po) and dopewars.pot with the
msgmerge command:-
msgmerge -o newfile de.po dopewars.pot
Examine this new file newfile for translations that need updating
(a search for "fuzzy" should find most of them) and then overwrite your old
translation with the new one:
mv newfile de.po
Rebuild and reinstall dopewars, and the new translations should become
available. Again, it is deeply appreciated if such updated files are
contributed to the main dopewars distribution!
Last update: 25-06-2022
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