SLUDGE Translation Editor

From Hungrysoftware

The SLUDGE Translation Editor is a program that allows entire SLUDGE projects to be easily translated without the user having access to the original .SLP file. This way, the author of the game can give all of the strings to somebody else dedicated to translating the game. It is also a seperate program from the rest of the SLUDGE Development Kit, so the translator does not need to install the Development Kit to use it.

To use the Translation Editor, first the strings need to be imported from the .SLP file. Once this is done, the .TRA file can then be given to the translator. All of the strings are sorted into categories;

• NEW STRINGS NOT YET TRANSLATED - All of the currently non-translated strings are placed in here ready for translation. They can then be translated or marked as not needing translation.
• STRINGS NOT REQUIRING TRANSLATIONS - Any strings that do not need to be translated, such as keyboard handles or font initialisations can be marked as not requiring translation and moved into this section.
• STRINGS WITH TRANSLATIONS - All translated strings appear in this category.
• SEARCH RESULTS - Strings can be searched, and the results are placed in here. As strings and their translations are linked, if a string is found, it's translation is also placed in the results if it has already been translated.

Once the strings have been translated, each language can be set a particular ID. This number is used to determine between the different language files. By creating an .INI file for the game, this ID can be read by the game upon start-up and the corresponding language used.

The completed translation files are then placed inside the .SLP file just like a normal .SLU file, and the game compiled as usual. If a .TRA file has not been fully completed, then the compiler will note this in an error during compilation. Any un-translated strings will be replaced by the default.