Other Languages

[Big C.]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry, I don't know if i'm right here with my posting...

I'm a german Guy and today i have read about Playbasic at http://www.codersworkshop.com as i see, read and play the competion result from Ian Price. I visit your Site and ordering directly a License for this perfect development tool.

But i have some questions...

Do you plan a german version of this perfect Tool in the future?

If not, is there a chance to translate it myself?

What the differences between your program and the development tool PureBasic (http://www.purebasic.com) - another good Basic IDE/Compiler package?

thx for your early answer.

Big C.

P.S.: sorry for my english

[Ian Price]

My game is having results already :D

Don't apologise for your English, it's perfectly readable. You should see my German. Actually, you shouldn't! :P

Welcome to the forum, and the wonderful world of PlayBASIC. :)

BTW we have another German colleague on these boards, nick-named "thaaks". Perhaps he could give you a hand where necessary. However, translating the whole Help file into another language would take an awful long time.

[thaaks]

Hi Big C.,
I agree with Ian - translating the whole online help to german is a HUUUGE effort.
If you have any translation problems feel free to ask - I'll give you a hand.
empty, the developer of the great IDE, is also a german guy so you're not alone  ;)

Differences PlayBasic - Purebasic:
Purebasic runs on more platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac (in beta I think)),
Purebasic has good support for GUI applications (say standard Windows applications).

I doubt that Purebasic has so many good FX and sprite stuff as Playbasic offers. It also misses the whole camera and world stuff, also the support for game maps.

3D engines are available for both basics.

I don't know about the Purebasic community - the Playbasic community is a small but good one - helpful, friendly and without all "white noise" and personal rants.

I am sure you can take many products and code games with them - it's just a question of what suits you the best and feels the most comfortable.

Cheers,
Tommy

[Big C.]

@Ian and thaaks
thx for your welcome and for your offer to help me... I'm very happy about yor friendliness.  :)  

@Ian
ok, i understand because i have play around with this program to find a point where i can start programing. So my first step was to read the helpfiles. I have seen that the complete Help package consist of many html-Files - thats perfect for me because i can do the translation myself if i had the time  :). But my question apply to the IDE.

@thaaks
Is empty planing a german version of his great IDE? I think the translations to other Languages would be of great help to me and others and it could have a share in worlwide acceptance maybe.
I've a registered version of Purebasic too. The Purbasic community is great. I frequently reading the postings in the form (http://forums.purebasic.com/english/ - http://www.purebasic-lounge.de - http://forums.purebasic.com/german/)

salute Big C.

[thaaks]

Big C.,
all I know is that empty announced the rise of a new version of his IDE in the future (empty, is that vague enough? :D ). He mentioned it in some thread in this forum recently.

I don't know if there is something like multi language support planned for the IDE.
Personally I prefer the english versions of software but that's just my preference.
I know quite a bunch of people who prefer the german menus and dialogs and are much faster with those versions than with the english version.

We should wait for a statement by empty - he's the IDE god of UWDesign  :D

Oh, before I forget: I didn't consider buying Purebasic because Purebasic is not strictly focusing on game development - PlayBasic is!  That's my personal impression at least  :rolleyes:

Cheers,
Tommy

[kevin]

We've kicked around the Multi language support idea in the past.   It's certainly a good one ! And In some regards we've already put in place some things to assist this, but mostly for the compiler time/runtime errors though.  However, due to the shear scope of translating everything,  we've never really made a conscious effort to have the documentation translated.

 In theory though, we could adapt the current document builder to support multiple language's, this however shouldn't stop at the documentation but should also include translated versions of the included examples.   So a user can work in their native language as much as possible.   My concern however, is finding somebody who is willing enough to translate it, cheaply !    There's easily over a 1000 pages (docs+ doc examples),  which even between 2/3 people  took 3 & 1/2  months to write.  (In a huge rush mind you)  

 Any volunteers ?

[empty]

True, the problem isn't so much to have the IDE support multiple languages. In fact the current IDE is "prepared" to handle these, but I never got around to implement the actual functionality (one of those loose ties :)). The biggest issue is the translation of the documentation.

[thaaks]

The question is: Is it worth the effort?

1. It needs quite some time to translate the documentation/compiler & linker errors/IDE dialogs, menus and so on

2. It requires a demand by "the public" to do this. This could only be raised by propagating the "insert your favorite language here" version of Playbasic in the proper "insert your favorite language here" gamedev forums.
What I mean is: You need a lot of say german people that would buy a german PB and thus raise enough profit to make it all worth it.

3. This raises the "egg or hen first" question: Is a german version required before it is announced to the german public (UWDesign has all the work upfront)? Or can you raise some funds by german orders by just promising the german version (UWDesign starts work after enough sales)? What if not enough people buy just based on a promise?

4. Each new release/bug fix/enhancement requires updating the foreign language documentation too.

That's what I call a difficult decision  :rolleyes:

Just my 2 cents,
Tommy

[kevin]

Agreed on all counts, and that's why we're not running out to out source it today.  At this point, I don't feel the investment in money & time would achieve enough return to warrant a full translation.

  We could certainly implement language support into the IDE + compiler, but we'd still need somebody to translate them.  another Catch 22..

[Big C.]

Hi,

I think, everyone of you has right... To mean approx. 1200 pages to documentation a lot job. A translation of these pages would mean a high additional outlay which should not be taken over only through the developer team. That was not my request either. I would work in person however with pleasure with an application or documentation in my language. It would be simpler for me. There is the documentation in the form of HTML-files... I could begin really already once, when Kevin tells to me with which application he wrote the documentation...  ;)

Is there anybody who would also still assist here? :unsure:

Big C.

P.S.: Excuses, if my English should not be correct and/or misleading, but I use translator. I simply lack too many vocabulary  :(

[Ian Price]

As they are HTML files, you can edit them in notepad. Just right click on them and choose "EDIT", then change the text to your preferred language.

BTW That translator is doing a very good job :)

[Big C.]

Hi @All, hi Kevin

the first step of the translation is done...  :)

I translated the error texts of the compiler in German. Maybe Tommy can carry out another quality assurance since I translated 1:1 in part  :( .

For this error text 'Logical Not may only operate upon integer or floating point values' I did not remember any corresponding translation unfortunately.  :huh: Tommy can you help?

using:
1. Unzip the attached File to \PlayBasic\Language
2. Replace in the Flat-File "Settings.txt" English by German
3. Save the changes and restart PlayBasic
4. Make a mistake and you will see/get German Errormessages

Greeting

Big C.

P.S.: It would be splendid if there was a separate language file which I could translate also for the IDE

Final Version released - see Error.txt in German - Final

[kevin]

Great job, thank you. (it's just a pity i can't read German :).

 I think, we'll add a dedicated language section to the mantaince forum for such conversions.

[Ian Price]

Now that we can get error messages in German, will that mean that they actually makes sense now? :P J/K

[thaaks]

For this error text 'Logical Not may only operate upon integer or floating point values' I did not remember any corresponding translation unfortunately.  :huh: Tommy can you help?

I think a proper german translation would be:
"Die logische Operation Not funktioniert nur mit Integer- oder Fließpunktwerten".

I will have a look at the german translations as soon as possible and post my update in this thread again.

Great that you started that, Big C.! I hope it will help some german users.

Cheers,
Tommy