Alexander wrote:

And I must say, until now I thought the German strings are rather longer, but compared to the French langauge strings they are really short and easy to handle.

Wait until you get a Finnish translation. No word under 28 characters.

Wd:
thank you for the explanation.
It was in the source, but I was not sure at all of the sense:

1jbutton.button%button_wrap

where “%” means modulo in C++.

Alexander:
I guess most people would rather a less technical description. No ? 😉
Something like “Limit button number to the emulated joystick, and cycle the others”.
Maybe with a Hint more detailed, such as “Real joystick's button 5 -> Emulated joystick's button 0 ; 6 -> 2 ; etc”.
Just a suggestion.

French strings are long ? Well, yes they are, usually. 😀
In fact, in some occasions, I could have wrote strings a bit shorter, for example saying “info” in place of “information”.
My reason is partly I don't see the component while I'm translating (since I translate directly in the INI file).

I think Borland should have created an easy and powerful tool to facilitate translations for a long time. But they did not.
Personally, under C++ Builder, I made a Frame to make it a bit easier, such as not translate twice the same string, or use globally the translations in different programs, or allow users to share their translations by Internet.
For the moment, it is not perfect, especially for modifications of the program (when strings are modified or some are deleted).

Ok, I'll wait for your new INI version.

Hi curieux,

at the moment I've choosen "If button wrap is activated, on joysticks with more than 4 buttons the higher physical buttons are mapped to lower logical numbers. For example physical button 5 is mapped to logical button 1, physical button 6 to logical button 2 etc." as info text for the button wrap checkbox.

The string lengths are no problem anymore. I've updated all buttons. Now everything should look right.

In Delphi there are some translation tools. You can create string tables for different languages and than "with simple recompiling" you can create exe files for different languages. - But this was no option for me. I don't wanted to make different program files for different languages. I even don't wanted to need to restart the program to change the language. So I had to find my own solution.

Today I'm to tired to work on D-Fend Reloaded but there is not much to do anymore, so tomorrow I will have all new language strings for the next version together. Version 0.3.2 will already have some (mostly for the user invisible) things in preparation for version 0.4.0. For example D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.2 will create checksums for the game exe and the setup exe files and store them in the prof files. At the moment they are only used to check if an imported profile is matching to an existing exe file. But 0.4.0 will use them with the auto setup templates to find the correct template for a new installed game.

on joysticks with more than 4 buttons the higher physical buttons are mapped to lower logical numbers

Only true for =4axis joystick emulation i think, with =2axis you'd get wrapping
after button2 already.

Here is russian translation for current (3.0.1) version.
Also I've translated messages for NSI scripts (as they are multinlanguage already).
Only too narrow controls are in SetupForm -
1)Label with "SDL Videodriver"
2)Label "Font Size" - in russian both words are wider then English ones.

Hi everybody,

D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.2 is ready, only the language files are missing. I had quite some trouble with the language files today (NSIS installer didn't show all languages etc.) But now most things seem to work. But let's start at the beginning:

Button wrap

New suggestion: "If button wrap is activated, on joysticks with more buttons than axis the higher physical buttons are mapped to lower logical numbers. For example on a normal 2-axis joystick the physical button 3 is mapped to logical button 1, physical button 4 to logical button 2 etc.".

New languages

@curieux, skatz: By posting your language files here I suppose you would like me to include them to the next D-Fend Reloaded release but anyway I will ask you here official: Do you agree with publishing your language files within the next D-Fend Reloaded release on Sourceforge ?

Cyrillic charset

I have tested the Russian language file today. I do not know much about the cyrillic alphabet but for me this does not look like cyrillic letters:

I can change the used charset from "DEFAULT_CHARSET" to "RUSSIAN_CHARSET" in the Delphi GUI editor (right side of the picture). I could make a key in each language file telling D-Fend Reloaded which charset to use. But this would be much work in the program code because I would have to write charset setting code for each opened window. I hope on an Russian Windows there is DEFAULT_CHARSET=RUSSIAN_CHARSET. Or in other words: Skatz is your translation (which will sure look right in the editor you have used) also looking right in your D-Fend Reloaded ? (In this case I would be happy because I wouldn't have to change anything.)

Dialog elements in Russian translation

Most of the things have already been changed to make the French translation look good. I only had to change the SDL videodriver label.

Languages for the installer

Yes, the installer was also designed multilingual from the beginning on (including disjunction of code an language strings). But I have never asked for translations for the installer for two reasons: 1.) The installer is saving the choosen language in the registry. (D-Fend Reloaded it self does not use the registry.) So once choosen "English" an update installer or a data package installer would never ask for the language even so it would contain more different languages. This means we would need to change the registry langauge setting after the installation. 2.) I didn't know what a data package installer (at the moment only containing English and German strings) would do if the key in the registry tells him to appear in Russian.

I have tested the second thing today: It falls back to English. Very good, so old installer packages are no problem.

The first thing was a bit more tricky but also solveable: I have added a third dropdown box in the language tab of the setup dialog for choosing the installer language. If there are language strings for the installer in one language then there can be a "NSISLanguageID=" string added to the normal language file telling D-Fend Reloaded this language can be choosen as a installer language and by the number behind the "=" which code NSIS installers want to have for this language in the registry.

The only remaining problem: The language key is stored in "HKLM\Software\D-Fend Reloaded". But to write to this key (under Vista) there are admin rights needed. There are some not so easy to handle Windows API functions to ask for admin rights (GetSecurityToken and so on). But in this case D-Fend Reloaded would get admin right for the rest of its running time and I only wanted to have admin right for this registry operation. So I have written a little NSIS script called "SetInstallerLanguage". This script does two things: First it requests admin rights and second (if you give admin rights to it) it writes the language ID given as its command line parameter to the language registry key. So when changing the installer language dropdown box in the D-Fend Reloaded setup dialog just this NSIS script (the compiled exe file) is called. Below the dropdown box there is a warning label "For changing the installer language you need admin rights. You will be asked for them if you change this setting."

And @Niville and curieux: Do not think "No no, now he is asking us to translate the installer with hundreds of language strings". For NSIS there are already translations for about 50 languages available. Only the D-Fend Reloaded specific strings (like the install type selection dialog) are missing. So if you want to translate them I would be glad, but if not this would be no problem because the installer language and the program language are completely disjunct.

The new language strings for 0.3.2

Next to writing this I will send you, Niville, curieux and skatz, your language file which the new language strings included (not much because 0.3.2 is only a bug fix release), a list of all changes and (only to Niville and curieux) the installer language files (about 30-40 strings for installer, update, deinstaller and data packages together).

Yes, I think that's it for the moment. Oh, one thing I nearly forgot: Today in the afternoon D-Fend Reloaded reached the 20.000 downloads line ! (Counted since the first release on 12/18/2007.) 😀 😀 😀

Greetings
Alexander

Alexander wrote:

@curieux, skatz: Do you agree with publishing your language files within the next D-Fend Reloaded release on Sourceforge ?

Yes, of course. That was the reason.

Skatz is your translation (which will sure look right in the editor you have used) also looking right in your D-Fend Reloaded ? (In this case I would be happy because I wouldn't have to change anything.)

Under Windows XP and Windows 2000 (both Russian) Delphi default charset works fine.
By the way, non-ASCII letters in french/spanish/german translations are displayed as some cyriilic characters under russian Windows. Maybe specifying charset in language file would be a good idea for some future release.

And I think, you may say (in FAQ somewhere) that author name in language file should be in english (or in latin transliteration) - because this is only string seen under other language interfaces (in About box).

skatz wrote:

Under Windows XP and Windows 2000 (both Russian) Delphi default charset works fine.

Nice to hear this. This means: Version 0.3.2 is really ready.

skatz wrote:

By the way, non-ASCII letters in french/spanish/german translations are displayed as some cyriilic characters under russian Windows. Maybe specifying charset in language file would be a good idea for some future release.

Yes, for this reason and because someone having an English Windows version could also want to run D-Fend Reloaded in Russian this is a good idea for one of the next versions.

At the moment I just want to finish the current bugfix release. So I have decided so say I will only fix it (in this release) if it's a real show stopper problem. When 0.3.2. is out of the door I will declare the big 0.4.0 feature wish list for open.

skatz wrote:

And I think, you may say (in FAQ somewhere) that author name in language file should be in english (or in latin transliteration) - because this is only string seen under other language interfaces (in About box).

Hmm, a good idea, too. Until now I haven't thought much about charset problems. - Ok, until yesterday I haven't even thought of different charsets in D-Fend Reloaded at all...

I should find enough time before the release of version 0.3.2 to add some information to the FAQ.

Hi

@curieux, skatz: By posting your language files here I suppose you would like me to include them to the next D-Fend Reloaded release but anyway I will ask you here official: Do you agree with publishing your language files within the next D-Fend Reloaded release on Sourceforge ?

Yes, I officially agree that.
I sent you the translations as a PM.

Cyrillic charset

As a comparison, the charset in the french version of C++ Builder is "DEFAULT_CHARSET", which seems to be equivalent of "ANSI_CHARSET" on the french Vista.

By the way, D-Fend Reloaded display french characters with no problem.

Maybe Borland should have upgraded the VCL to unicode for a while, but in my old version (at least) they did not.

Hi again,

I read this at first after sending the PM to you. That's just what I said. I think DEFAULT_CHARSET and ANSI_CHARSET are the same on a German Vista.

And I hope nobody trys to make a Chinese (Madarin or something like this) translation. Because this would mean I would have to think about unicode. And at the moment I always use in any place simple (one-byte) string variables. This would be a lot of work and I even don't know if all of the VCL functions can handle this. (And additionally I would have no idea if the chars on the screen are right.)

Russian translation was sent via PM.

BTW, while changing language StartSizeComboBox lost its value. All other combos keep theirs. This behaviour is hardcoded, but why?

That's very easy to answer: That is a mistake made by me. In the older versions this was right. Then someday I thought InitGUI is only called when the dialog is opend so why saving and restoring the currently selected item ? (When changing the items of an comboxbox the number of the selected item is lost.) Let's simply set it to 0 (the first item in the box). When loading the setup (which occures after initGUI) the value is overwritten anyway. And of course this was wrong: InitGUI (which loads the language) is also called after changing the language and in this situation the selected item in the StartSizeComboBox of course needs to be saved.

Thank you for finding this bug. Because I always let D-Fend Reloaded start at its default window size I wouldn't have found this bug.

Can some explain how to get more than 1 DosBox command in the profiles? I got Reloaded to work for Moo as it does not use a CD. I was trying to get Ascendancy to go and I am not able to get both mount commands into the profile. The game works fine with DosBox, when I manually enter the mounts.

I seemed to remember the D-Fend settup created all the commands for me, but that was a while ago. Thanks for any help.

I have no problem with that. Go to the "Drives" tab on your profile and make sure all units are mounted. I have a few games that require more than une unit and they all work.

Here's how I set up the CD version of "Syndicate", first I put the folder that acts as harddrive, then the folder that acts as CD-ROM:

Neville, I added the hard drive one and the CDROM as J:\ with no iocontrol.

If I just open DosBox and issue mount c C:\ASCEND and mount j J:\ -t cdrom usecd 2. Then switch to C: and enter ASCEND, it runs fine. Looks like this in Reload:

Mmm... could it be that DFR is mounting your CD with different instructions? There are several ways to mount a CD under DOSBox, and not all of them work with all games / PCs.

Alexander or a more experienced DFR user should know how to answer this better than me, now that it seems you did mount everything OK.

You can find a live copy of the autoexec section if you do a

TYPE Z:\AUTOEXEC.BAT

from inside DOSBox.

Best way to check how the drives was actually mounted.

I set the close to not close and I see the ASCEND command fails. It fails because DosBox is still at Z:. It did not switch to C:. If I do C: and then ASCEND, it runs.

The C and J drives are mounted. Still trying to figure out what is needed to get that aspect to occur.

Edit: ok i got it now. I had noto added the executable in the program file portion, only the directory. Thanks all.

well that is a common bug with this frontend it seems.
In another thread this was reported as well.
(alexander: the one i linked when I asked you about attaching a generated configfile)

Hi,

ok, this is a good solution to the problem for me at the moment because I'm just preparing the 0.3.2 release and would not like to have a new bug at the moment.

But there are some things to say about the CD mounting anyway:

1) At the moment D-Fend Reloaded does not support the "usecd" parameter for the mount command. (-> 0.4.0 todo).

2.) D-Fend Reloaded can show you the used conf file by simple right clicking on a profile and then selecting "Show DOSBox conf file" from the context menu. - That's even more easy than a "type autoexec.bat" in DOSBox and additionally it shows the whole conf file.

3.) vmxa's problem was not related to the "no cd commands" bug in D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.1. The bug only occures when you try to run a program file which is located on a CD (because D-Fend Reloaded only trys to find a path to the file via the mounted harddisk folders - and additionally fails without any waring). Both things are corrected in 0.3.2 (now it also looks on mounted CDs and if it finds no path to the file it will show a warning). vmxa mounted a CD and a harddisk and then wanted to start a file from the harddisk. This should work anyway.

... Because this was fortunately no new bug in D-Fend Reloaded, I can continue making the installer packages and updating my local copy of the homepage. And by tomorrow in the morning we will have D-Fend Reloaded 0.3.2.