The Tavern

In a way there is a problem, but it's a different one than the OP is describing.

Now that the game is starting to support translations, we have an interesting decision of what to do about prompts that are dependant in the first letter of a specific word. This has been mentioned before, and in some languages Str and Dex could even begin with the same letter!

I think the prompt should be changed to: (1) Str (2) Dex (3) Int

It's very clear and easy to have a menu where you press 1, 2 or 3 - and this solves the problem nicely for all languages.

mumra wrote:Now that the game is starting to support translations, we have an interesting decision of what to do about prompts that are dependant in the first letter of a specific word. This has been mentioned before, and in some languages Str and Dex could even begin with the same letter!

Yes, that's another matter entirely. Being involved in the translation I just assumed commands remained in English for a while.
Changing every command key to match the language could be a very long task and would therefore bring some issue when initial letters collide. But in a simple menu choice it can be the right way.
Also numbers tend to be more easy to press and less prone to error because they have different meaning each time you really have to focus on what question are you answering.

For internationalization, I was thinking that prompts could go through a function which would look at the first letter of each option to set the keys. In case of conflicts it would simply iterate through the letters of the word until it finds a unique one. Simple and predictable.
I don't think using numbers would be an improvement. And I don't see how it would address the OP's complaint anyway. After all, they are right next to each other

galehar wrote:For internationalization, I was thinking that prompts could go through a function which would look at the first letter of each option to set the keys. In case of conflicts it would simply iterate through the letters of the word until it finds a unique one. Simple and predictable.

Still less simple and predictable than a numeric list! Why do we need to have prompt keys scattered around the keyboard? It makes sense for spells where there are more than 10 options, but for a list of three items you can't get any simpler than 1, 2, 3.

galehar wrote:I don't think using numbers would be an improvement. And I don't see how it would address the OP's complaint anyway. After all, they are right next to each other

I just think it's a bit easier to locate the number keys in the dark than trying to find S and D, unless of course you are a touch typist and know how to find F by its different shape

galehar wrote:For internationalization, I was thinking that prompts could go through a function which would look at the first letter of each option to set the keys. In case of conflicts it would simply iterate through the letters of the word until it finds a unique one. Simple and predictable.

Do you understand that some languages have compose keys for most of their basic symbols keys print a standard latin character upon pressing? For example, this is a Japanese "standard" keyboard: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue1/Japanese_Keyboard.gif (yes there are "permanent" modifiers but so nobody uses capital letters by default because there is caps-lock). If a function can be made, it's far better that the key is selected by the translator in some way (older programs used to add a control character in front of the active letter in the translation string).

Still if DCSS is internationalized, you should first choose if it will use different keys for standard commands based on the language or stick to the standard ones used for the english version. Since you just support vi keys, it could be (I'm no expert in this way) that the latter option is the best one.

Maybe some mod could split this thread into an i18n one?

The Tavern

Internationalization of prompts

Internationalization of prompts

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Re: Picking a stat to increase at level-up

Re: Picking a stat to increase at level-up

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