Translating GZDoom's text content. Read if you want to help

[Undead]

I just fixed some mistranslations/grammatical gender mismatches and removed almost all abbreviated terms in the Russian translation thanks to the extra spacing allowed by the new font (in the engine spreadsheet). Also updated the status of of the Strife subtitles with lines that are used in Strife: Veteran Edition, though I’m guessing those aren’t entirely supported by GZDoom anyway (like these).

The OP is slightly outdated—here’s an updated version that can be copy-pasted:

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Code: Select all • Expand view

I finally managed to export all language content to a spreadsheet. Here are links to a couple of Google spreadsheets.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/125KS8lOk8a_Mkxg_NHyMd0XUrDkjUMaNizO0MxiDBF4/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pvwXEgytkor9SClCiDn4j5AH7FedyXS-ocCbsuQIXDU/edit?usp=sharing

My hopes are that there's some interest here to help fill in some gaps.
If you want to contribute, please continue reading.

This Google spreadsheet will serve as the master text list for GZDoom in the future. What gets in here will get into the next release.
Any contributions should be submitted in spreadsheet form and formatted so that they can be easily copied into this master list.

This means, you should download this sheet, and depending on whether you want to complete an existing language or add a new one, either edit the column for your language or add a new one. If you start working on something please post a quick note here.
Alternatively you may ask to get write access to this one. For that, please send me a PM.

Also, please make intermediate submissions of your work if parts are complete so it can be reviewed by other users.

If someone is interested in contributing some graphics work but not actually translating, there are still some characters to be added to the fonts.
Here's a spreadsheet with the current status:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QvRvEcBOtXuJ5lBBThAF-rLjGFHhXiSN1x8wfBpW3rk/edit?usp=sharing

Entries marked red are characters that are missing for the current set of languages, and those marked orange are missing for languages that are currently being translated. All yellow entries would be an extra, but right now no language requiring these characters has seen any work. All other colors mark characters that won't be needed or are already done.

Also, congratulations to the completed engine part of the Finnish translation (at least for Doom)!

[Graf Zahl]

What screen size did you check against?

I just did some checking myself and found out that in order to work well the menu needs 680 pixels with a factor of 1 - on 640 width a few sliders will get cut off, mostly in Finnish, but that's not really worth fixing, those who insist on such a small screen should use English!

As a result of this space checking I changed the scaling factor from 1 to 2 for screen widths between 1360 and 1920, mainly to allow this on laptops with a 1366x768 screen.

[Undead]

640x480. The longest menu string I could find in the spreadsheet is CMPTMNU_ANYBOSSDEATH (second line in the screenshot below):

[Graf Zahl]

It's not merely the longest text, but the longest option that matters. The compatibility menu has very short values and a lot of maneuvering space. I found the biggest issue the sliders in the alternative HUD options menu, and for Finnish had to request two changes because the texts are so long that they break the menu layout, even on 1366x768 (those were the only ones with problems in that menu with that screen size.)

[Esrael]

Also, congratulations to the completed engine part of the Finnish translation (at least for Doom)!

Thanks! My pleasure, quite literally. Translating my childhood games has turned out to be quite the hobby of mine. I've also done a lot of translation for the OpenXcom project. Anyway, I'm glad the effort hasn't gone unnoticed.

It's not merely the longest text, but the longest option that matters. The compatibility menu has very short values and a lot of maneuvering space. I found the biggest issue the sliders in the alternative HUD options menu, and for Finnish had to request two changes because the texts are so long that they break the menu layout, even on 1366x768 (those were the only ones with problems in that menu with that screen size.)

Thanks a lot for the testing! I've shortened the strings and will test them now.

I just did some checking myself and found out that in order to work well the menu needs 680 pixels with a factor of 1 - on 640 width a few sliders will get cut off, mostly in Finnish, but that's not really worth fixing, those who insist on such a small screen should use English!

Which sliders; tell me! I'm a perfectionist, so I NEED to fix them!

[Graf Zahl]

The biggest ones were the two I mailed you about, in general the menus with the longest texts are the alternative HUD options and miscellaneous.
On 640x480 a few texts in multiple languages won't fit completely but I don't see much of a point getting this one screen size to work perfectly. Even if it's a bit cut off, users should be aware that this is the lowest end of the currently supported spectrum.

[Esrael]

I've been going through the menus in Finnish to the best of my ability at 640x400 resolution and have been shortening strings that don't fit in the screen. During testing I found some strings that are missing from the Google spreadsheet:

• Key names while customizing keys, such as Mouse1, LTrigger, and so on. Not sure if the names are read from the OS, or whether they can be translated in the game.
• Team colour, class and skin strings in player settings. I'm assuming the colour, class and skin names are dependent on the individual models/mods, which is why they're out of the scope of this translation project? Even the default Doom marine (or Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest) options? o:
• Kills, items, secrets, stamina and accuracy indicators in the alternate HUD (K, I, S, ST and AC). I guess translating them might actually confuse the player more than keeping them as is, which is why they weren't made translatable?
• Crosshair types (cross, angle, circle etc.)
• Crosshair/Menu dim colour settings (Red, Green, Blue and Undo changes)
• In the miscellaneous options the "Unknown" string while using unknown languages.
• Of the available MIDI devices, OPL Synth Emulation isn't really a proper noun, right, so perhaps consider making it translatable? o:
• OpenAL-settings->Playback device: the options themselves, such as "Default", "on" (as in OpenAL Soft on Speakers, for example). The same goes for the resampler options.
• ADLMidi-settings->OPL Bank: There are quite a few strings inside the brackets that could be translated. Are the brackets read from the OPL banks themselves or can they be translated by ZDoom?
• Pretty much all of the settings in the reverb environment editor
• There may be more, but I'm out of energy for now. So now I've gone through everything till the display options, so I'll pick up from the display options another time.

[Graf Zahl]

I've been going through the menus in Finnish to the best of my ability at 640x400 resolution and have been shortening strings that don't fit in the screen. During testing I found some strings that are missing from the Google spreadsheet:

I know that not everything is translatable.

[*]Key names while customizing keys, such as Mouse1, LTrigger, and so on. Not sure if the names are read from the OS, or whether they can be translated in the game.

The table is in the C code, the reason why this isn't exported is because the names are needed as identifiers for binding and should be the same in the menu.

[*]Team colour, class and skin strings in player settings. I'm assuming the colour, class and skin names are dependent on the individual models/mods, which is why they're out of the scope of this translation project? Even the default Doom marine (or Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest) options? o:

A similar problem as above: Display name and identifier are being shared making localization a bit difficult.

[*]Kills, items, secrets, stamina and accuracy indicators in the alternate HUD (K, I, S, ST and AC). I guess translating them might actually confuse the player more than keeping them as is, which is why they weren't made translatable?

They were simply overlooked initially, but the confusion issue was part of why it wasn't changed.

[*]Crosshair types (cross, angle, circle etc.)

The names are read from external resources (See xhairs.txt in gzdoom.pk3.)

[*]Crosshair/Menu dim colour settings (Red, Green, Blue and Undo changes)
[*]In the miscellaneous options the "Unknown" string while using unknown languages.

Thanks for pointing out. These were totally missed.

[*]Of the available MIDI devices, OPL Synth Emulation isn't really a proper noun, right, so perhaps consider making it translatable? o:

Depends on the language. If it's a problem for Finnish, translate it as 'Emulator'.

[*]OpenAL-settings->Playback device: the options themselves, such as "Default", "on" (as in OpenAL Soft on Speakers, for example). The same goes for the resampler options.

[*]ADLMidi-settings->OPL Bank: There are quite a few strings inside the brackets that could be translated. Are the brackets read from the OPL banks themselves or can they be translated
[*]Pretty much all of the settings in the reverb environment editor
by ZDoom?

These denote named resources. Translating them might be a bit of a problem as a result.

[*]There may be more, but I'm out of energy for now. So now I've gone through everything till the display options, so I'll pick up from the display options another time.[/list]

[/quote]

There's certainly more. What do you expect of an engine that never saw a concerted translation effort for 20 years and more?

[Graf Zahl]

Some small update:

Polish is done except for the Hexen Deathkings intermission texts, the Hexen script texts, the Strife dialogues and character names. Once the Hexen stuff and Strife character names are complete it will be added to the menu.

Regarding language completeness, Italian has been part of the menu for some time now, but aside from the Strife dialogue is still missing the Hexen intermissions. A few weeks ago I got one text submitted via PM which I added, but the remaining 10 are still missing. If someone who speaks Italian could fill those in and review the one external submission it'd be great, so that the language is complete without the Strife dialogue.

Sadly, all the other languages seem to have stalled again. On Czech, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Esperanto and Romanian there was no notable progress.

[Hurykles]

Hey. I have a question. Is this possible to add some-nightmare like font? It looks kinda out of place without it.

[Graf Zahl]

Currently not, it's a bit of overkill for one single line of text to implement a special case.

[Undead]

I changed “Joystick Options” to “Controller Options”, since it’s a more modern term and was already used in the menu category’s other texts. Translators can change this for their corresponding languags.

[Kinsie]

Work on the Japanese translation continues, although getting them to talk with the main translation project remains tricky.

Sigil screenshot
Strife screenshot

[Captain J]

Updated some dialogues of random Games like:

Hacx's OB_SUICIDE: Now it's clear to explain that the player did something murderous to themselves.

Chex Quest's E1TEXT and E2TEXT: The same thing as Hacx's OB_SUICIDE but without suicide thing. And E2TEXT had quad "s.

Strife's TXT_DLG_SCRIPT02_D43964_GOODC, TXT_DLG_SCRIPT33_D16676_GOODC, TXT_DLG_SCRIPT12_D18192_YOUCA and TXT_DLG_SCRIPT14_D12128_WEREF: Harris now will inform with more detail, like the river leads to Sanctuary. Oracle's last quote was re-translated the same as English Dialogue's. And lastly, one of the Dialogue of Degnin Miner after turned into Normal is a bit better and less loony.

And i see some new Blackbird's Dialogues are on the Spreadsheet. Maybe i should work on them sooner or later!

... Oh, and one more thing. Hexen's Class Select screen is a bit weird, some translations are not working properly, although we filled all of them.

[Graf Zahl]

The player class names are unfortunately screwed up. The property that should be used for the translated name is also being used for identification, making it impossible to translate.