Hebrew translation

[morshem]

Eh... I have sort of lost track of the process of it...
What exactly is the current status of the Hebrew translation, for both games?

[ChaosFish]

The Hebrew translation of LBA1 is 100% done.

The LBA2 one... well I need to get back to checking it over.

[morshem]

Then why don't we distribute it? Isn't it possible to make it from right to left without Sebastian?

[ChaosFish]

O_Brasileiro agreed to try doing it

[Gustav Sweden]

WTF this forum is really active, never seen it before.

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by Gustav Sweden

WTF this forum is really active, never seen it before.

hehehehehe

Welcome then!

[morshem]

Yeah, actually this forum is much more active than what I expected

[Schnitzel-Man]

A possible solution to the hebrew problem:
Find a program that can flip the screen.
Basically, it would fix the right-to-left problem, but leave a few others:

problem: the font will be flipped as well
solution: flip the font!

problem: The entire game will be flipped
solution: you only need to switch the keys for right&left. other than that, you'll need to get used to the new directions...

problem: The numbers will appear reversed
solution: In the text files, write them in reverse. The only place where I don't think you can is the inventory (this is probably the only problem I can't think of a solution to...)

I tried searching for a screen flipping program but I couldn't really find one, so if anybody find one (or can program one), they're more than welcome...

[xesf]

[Zink]

I was trying to change the code to make the text appear from right to left, but I failed (I think because I have never done such thing before ).
I think I could try again on vacation.

[morshem]

Or maybe we can simply flip the text... somehow .

[lembo]

does anyone know what language the game is coded in? and does anybody have the relevant parts of the source? i could try to take a look at it over the summer perhaps?

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by morshem

Or maybe we can simply flip the text... somehow .

No. That wouldn't work because of the line slide (don't really know how to explain), and plus, it will look really bad. We need someone who is cool enough (like Zink or Obras) to try and change the LBA EXE file.

[Zink]

Wait, If I understand, the Hebrew text should have only letters order from right to left, right?

So you can just split the text into lines in the way that LBA do, and write each line with inverted character order. Am I right?

Althought there would be some problems when you wanted to change a part of a text.

[lembo]

Originally Posted by kakadudu

Wait, If I understand, the Hebrew text should have only letters order from right to left, right?

So you can just split the text into lines in the way that LBA do, and write each line with inverted character order. Am I right?

Althought there would be some problems when you wanted to change a part of a text.

i actually thought about that as i was writing my last reply, but didn't know whether the text in the LBA files was split into lines and then read into the text frame line by line, or whether the whole set of words from a single speech-instance was stored as a single line, and then parsed into seperate lines at run-time. I assumed the latter (due to the former requiring the number of characters for each line being under a certain number due to space considerations, therefore making it more difficult, and making it take a lot longer to write out the text files in the first place), but if it is the case that the text files are written out line-for-line as they appear in the game, then yeah, you could quite easily just put in the characters backwards. Only thing is then that again you'd need to work out the max char limit for a line, and the text would uncover the wrong way (does it uncover? can't remember now, ah well, if it doesn't...no matter).

And there shouldn't be any problems if you wanted to change the text, just make a small program which reverses every line in a file (not difficult to do *at all*), extract the text you want to change, switch it back to an easily editable sequence using the program, edit it, switch it back again using the program, put it back into the file.

[Schnitzel-Man]

There are three problems with just reversing the text:
First, as lembo said, the text would be uncovered in the wrong order...
Second, If the text is longer than one line on the screen (and it usually is) the line of the text will appear in reversed order (the last line will appear first, and so on).
And third, there's the alignment problem (A line that will be less than a full line's length will be aligned left instead of right).

A possible solution to the second problem is to reverse the lines in the text file. This will require to know where exactly are the line breaks put...
And the possible solution to the third problem is to add extra spaces in the last line, so it'll make a full line.
And I can't really think of a solution to the first problem.... but it's probably less important.

[ChaosFish]

I thought about this solution, but it would be ugly (the text will start sliding from left to right) and buggy.

So we'll better just wait for Yaz0r's Twin-E, and not start messing with it that way.
But if anyone can and is willing to hack the EXE file to make the text slide from right to left, I am forever in their debt.

P.S. I really appreciate all your suggestions btw, nice to know people care

[Schnitzel-Man]

Of course we care, we like hebrew. =)
I think that if someone does find a way to hack the EXE file, the best way would probably be flipping the text only (mirror).

[Zink]

Yes, this sliding from left to right would be unavoidable, but this solution would be much easier to introduce, than editing exe (I will not reject editing it of course).

Here's what I think:
I can make a programme to convert edited texts, so that they would be displayed properly. The programme would recognize how LBA will make the lines (using your hebrew font, not character count, because characters has different widths), and reverse char order inside the lines. I think it wouldn't be buggy, but texts displayed on the full screen have different line width (it wouldn't be very big problem: the programme would use proper line width for such texts).
The problem with last line can't be solved with putting spaces because LBA skips spaces except the first one. But it can be solved with creating a one-pixel-width transparent character (I used #254 because it isn't converted) and putting it before the last line text, it would put the text to the right. Actually this one-pixel character is displayed too slow, so we can use 3- or 4-pixel. This would be done by the programme too.

I made sample text: see the attachment.

There would be no problem with editing such texts, because you could keep original texts, and when you wanted to release them, you would run the programme, which would convert all the texts and save them in a separate directory.

[Battler]

Since I have the text part (by yaz0r) of the code (TwinE?), I already made it for RTL writing, only that I have to send it to yaz0r first, so he will compile an .EXE with that.

[xesf]

Originally Posted by kakadudu

Yes, this sliding from left to right would be unavoidable, but this solution would be much easier to introduce, than editing exe (I will not reject editing it of course).

Here's what I think:
I can make a programme to convert edited texts, so that they would be displayed properly. The programme would recognize how LBA will make the lines (using your hebrew font, not character count, because characters has different widths), and reverse char order inside the lines. I think it wouldn't be buggy, but texts displayed on the full screen have different line width (it wouldn't be very big problem: the programme would use proper line width for such texts).
The problem with last line can't be solved with putting spaces because LBA skips spaces except the first one. But it can be solved with creating a one-pixel-width transparent character (I used #254 because it isn't converted) and putting it before the last line text, it would put the text to the right. Actually this one-pixel character is displayed too slow, so we can use 3- or 4-pixel. This would be done by the programme too.

I made sample text: see the attachment.

There would be no problem with editing such texts, because you could keep original texts, and when you wanted to release them, you would run the programme, which would convert all the texts and save them in a separate directory.

I think this is the best solution for now.
Send the program to ChaosFish and he will test it with his translation.

[Zink]

I haven't made it yet I am awaiting ChaosFish's opinion.

[ChaosFish]

Hmm sounds interesting
If you would agree to spend time on doing that, and you think it will work, it would be awesome!

So do you need me giving you anything for this? My LBA hebrew font/text/anything?

[Zink]

I think I will make it using standard font and texts, but I need your font and texts (and conversion map if you don't use standard one) to make this "spacechar".
I have an idea with the last line, because I think that 4-pixel "spacechar" can still take too much time to display, so I could make several "spacechars" with different widths and the programme could assemble them to get needed width.
And it would be good if you had a list of texts that are displayed in fullscreen (if you don't, it can be made later).

[xesf]

Zink, can you release this LBA Hebrew Covert?

A new member wants make an Arabic translation and need RTL thing.