The Dragon and Chips series

Languages FAQ


How to add and modify translation files for Spacejock Software apps



Most Spacejock Software applications come with one or more translation files, which allow you to change the text in the user interface to other languages.

All translation files are supplied by users of the software. Some files are incomplete, either because new features were added after the files were created, or because the files were made for older versions of the software.

Some of my programs (e.g. yWriter5) have a 'Create template.txt' entry under the Languages menu. When you choose this option, the program will create a language template containing all known words and sentences which can be translated. You can then edit this template to create a complete translation file.

Unicode vs ASCII

Double-byte languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic, etc) need to be saved as Unicode Text. If you edit one of these files you must save it back out as Unicode or the special characters will be lost. All other languages should be saved as Ascii.

Updating an existing translation file

It's very easy to update a translation file. First, locate the Languages folder for the program in question, which will be inside the folder containing the program. E.g. BookDB2 is usually installed to C:\Program Files\BookDB2 or My Documents\BookDB2, and inside the program folder you'll find the Languages folder.

Look for the file you want to update. E.g. Spanish.txt.

Open the file with a text editor, and look for lines where the part before the separator (||) is the same as the part afterwards.

Translate the part after the separator.

Save the file regularly, and test it by switching the program to English and then back to the language you're working with.

If there are sentences in the program which are not in the translation file, copy them from the Template file as described above.

If you're willing, please send me the updated translation file for inclusion with the program. You must zip it first, else long lines will be broken up and the file will be unusable.


Adding a new translation file
Open the Languages folder and sort the files by size (Usually, the bigger the file, the more complete.)

Copy the biggest file to 'newlanguage.txt', where newlanguage is the language you're translating to. E.g. Spanish.txt

(Or better still, create a template file as above and start with that as the basis of your translation file)

Open the file and follow the instructions at the top.

For every line containing ||, change the second half of the line (after the ||) to your own language.

Save often. After the first save you can run the program you're translating and switch between English and your translation to see the effect.

If you're willing, please send me the new translation file for inclusion with the program. You must zip it first, else long lines will be broken up and the file will be unusable.