GUI localization

[Thunderforge]

But the best option right now is to not do any work on localisation of extra strings. This is a post 1.0 feature.

I understand the desire to wait until after 1.0 to do GUI localization because of other priorities, but there is definitely a willingness from other developers to work on this now. I mean, multiplayer was a post 1.0 feature but there is the TES3MP project led by developers to address that right now. So long as there are guidelines about how we want to approach this, I don't see the downside of letting developers work on GUI localization now. Worst case, they could fork the project like TES3MP and merge it post 1.0, but it would of course be best to determine how it will look when we merge it back in.

I see that PR #1075 for adding flavor text to item descriptions was rejected because it would make the .omwaddon format incompatible with the .esm/.esp format, and a requirement for version 1.0 is that they should be compatible. Fair enough. While that would be a barrier if localizations were solely in .esp format, it sounds like the majority of commenters on this thread aren't liking that approach anyway and would prefer an external file, and this would avoid the issue with making .omwaddon incompatible.

If the only other reason is "because our core developers want to work on other stuff", then I don't see the downside of letting other developers add this functionality on their own. If there are other reasons for waiting until after 1.0, like the .omwaddon compatibility issue, then I'd be interested to know what they are.

For what it's worth, we have a few open PRs like #1290 Added hotkey for local/world map switching that are blocked because of a lack of a GUI localization strategy.

[Zini]

This is not a question of priorities. We simply can not do localisation of extra strings at this point. We are missing a lot of ground work. Anything we would do now would need to be ripped out again later and then replaced by a proper solution.

[Zini]

But thanks for bringing that topic up again. That made me think about the future localisation feature again and finally the last piece, that I had puzzled with unsuccessfully for more than a year, fell into place.

Kinda scary that I carry pretty much the entire post 1.0 design in my memory with almost nothing written down. I should start to bring that to paper (or rather file) eventuality. Well, we can always hope someone invents the 36 hour day or maybe there will be a couple of days during which I will be less busy. The former is more likely than the later. Good thing that my memory for these kind of things is excellent.

[Thunderforge]

But thanks for bringing that topic up again. That made me think about the future localisation feature again and finally the last piece, that I had puzzled with unsuccessfully for more than a year, fell into place.

Glad that the issue was worked out!

Kinda scary that I carry pretty much the entire post 1.0 design in my memory with almost nothing written down. I should start to bring that to paper (or rather file) eventuality.

Please do! Not only because we'd like to see it, but also because with it all in your mind, the post 1.0 release plans have a bus factor of 1. In other words, if you get hit by a bus, then OpenMW's entire post 1.0 release plans are lost and we have to start over from scratch (if the project even survives). Kinda scary indeed!

If it were written down and something were to happen to you, we'd be able to continue the project and the plans. More people would have to get hit by a bus for the project to fail.