Removing RTL language translations

[wheybags]

Hi all,
I'm sorry to say that we will be removing the RTL language translations (Hebrew and Arabic) in the next version of the game.
They will however not be 100% removed - the project will remain up on crowdin, and the locale files will still be present in game, but there will be no option in the in-game language options dialog to choose them. If you want to use an RTL language, you will have to manually edit your config file to set your locale.

You can do this by opening the config folder in your Application directory, then editing config.ini.
You should add locale=he or locale=ar to the [general] section. This means you need something like this as the final result:

Code: Select all

[general]
locale=he

If you already have the [general] part, you can just add in the locale line.

As for the reason for this change - until this point we've had a half implementation of RTL languages, where the text is simply flipped when we download it from crowdin. This "works" for a decent proportion of things, but not nearly 100%. In order to attain the level of polish we want for the 1.0 release, we would need to spend a bunch of time implementing proper support for RTL layouts, and this just doesn't make sense for us. We decided that instead of completely gutting the translations, we could leave them in for those who enjoy them, but not to offer them in the GUI as defaults.
I want to take this opportunity however, to thank all the translators who have contributed to the he and ar locales over the years. I'm sorry that we can't have a better resolution this time.

[jockeril]

This news is very disappointing although expected - I knew deep down that RTL support will either be postponed for ever or removed / forgotten - no game company, that I know, has ever supported RTL in a game and probably never will...

BTW - "This just doesn't make sense to us" is insulting, you could have gone with "not enough playerbase to justify" or something like that

[nou]

They most likely meaned "nemá to pro nás smysl" which can be translated as it doesn't meke sense for us but also as It is not worth it for us.

[jockeril]

They most likely meaned "nemá to pro nás smysl" which can be translated as it doesn't meke sense for us but also as It is not worth it for us.

not making it better - sounds just as worst...

[CzBuCHi]

maybe they look at statistics how many players actually uses RTL languages and they decided that both of them must use ini file to activate them in future?

PS: no idea how many players actually uses RTL...

[makrom]

They most likely meaned "nemá to pro nás smysl" which can be translated as it doesn't meke sense for us but also as It is not worth it for us.

not making it better - sounds just as worst...

I don't think that's insulting at all. I have never seen a single game that got translated to my native language. There even are plenty of Japanese games where the publishers don't consider an English translation to be worth it.

[Vyrasa]

BTW - "This just doesn't make sense to us" is insulting, you could have gone with "not enough playerbase to justify" or something like that

I think it's meant as a statement of blunt business reality - it's they way they seem to state such things, looking at other 'won't fix'/'will remove' bug report replies. I don't know how much is translation and how much is culture, but while a bit raw to my American ears, I think they're aiming for just a neutral, functional statement. A PR person probably would rephrase it like you have, but I do believe their intent is the same - not meant as an insult, just acknowledging what is reasonable for a company their size, with their playerbase, to pursue.

[Holy-Fire]

Disappointing. Sort of. Personally I've never used a localization, never will and I can't quite understand why anyone would want to. But it was satisfying to know that a Hebrew localization was readily available, a sort of national pride if you will (and no, it doesn't count if you have to mess with config files to get there).

I can understand jockeril's observation that full RTL support in games is pretty much unheard of... But if any game can pull off unheard of things, it's Factorio.

[BlueTemplar]

Are there any Operating Systems and Programming Languages that are designed out of the box to work Right-To-Left, rather than Left-To-Right ?
(And would have similar issues when trying to deal with Left-To-Right text...)

[Holy-Fire]

Wi

Are there any Operating Systems and Programming Languages that are designed out of the box to work Right-To-Left, rather than Left-To-Right ?
(And would have similar issues when trying to deal with Left-To-Right text...)

Windows supports Right-to-Left, which means that it works without problem with either Right-to-Left or Left-to-Right.

Basically any program which uses standard OS components can be made to support either RTL or LTR, you configure it as you want and it works.

There is also usually not a problem with text which contains both Hebrew and English in the same sentence.

The problem is with gaming graphic libraries which do not use the standard components provided by the OS, and have to be coded to support RTL intentionally.

[BlueTemplar]

Thanks for the information, but that's not exactly what I was asking :
I'm pretty sure that Windows has been built using English and Left-To-Right programming languages and tools (additionally, I doubt that they had Right-To-Left support, even in Windows XP days?),
rather than Hebrew/Arabic/? and Right-To-Left programming languages and tools...

[jockeril]

Thanks for the information, but that's not exactly what I was asking :
I'm pretty sure that Windows has been built using English and Left-To-Right programming languages and tools (additionally, I doubt that they had Right-To-Left support, even in Windows XP days?),
rather than Hebrew/Arabic/? and Right-To-Left programming languages and tools...

Then let me alleviate that doubt - Windows had full Right-to-Left support since windows 95 - The whole display was inverted, not successfully in the first iteration, but windows 98 SE (second edition) was a very good RTL version and sold by the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) to home, SMB and government / education. Microsoft made it a target to support RTL to have the biggest stake in OS sales in Hebrew speaking market - that obviously also contributed to it's penetration into the Arabic speaking world - and that a much bigger market (at least a thousand fold)

My current Windows 7 home edition PC (on which I play several version of Factorio on, some in hebrew to help translate mods for instance) has Hebrew MUI (interface) and Hebrew & US keyboards configured.

Now - I just don't see a point in translating mods anymore and that after I got several modders including @narc RTL-ing their mod interfaces to accomodate for Factorio's shortcomings until Wube make the new GUI RTL enabled - That's out the window now...

But - It's arguably understandable since, ya, there are not many gamer playing Factorio in RTL languages... though if Factorio supported Hebrew/Arabic It could have been taught to children and have them learn several things like logic, logistics chains and more...

R.I.P. RTL

[BlueTemplar]

That's good to hear, but again, as you say, "support" - Windows 95 (and earlier and DOS) has certainly NOT been built using Hebrew/Arabic programming languages and RTL tools, and only later added English and LTR support.

[jockeril]

And now that I think about it again, thanks to Blue Templar, I remember that the first internationally famous indie game that Factorio also has been compared with in relation to it's success on platforms like STEAM - Minecraft had a Hebrew language GUI, R-T-L enabled chat and other features that were put in it A LOT before Microsoft bought it and the amount of children playing it in Hebrew on YouTube is amazing - guess Factorio will not have that kind of success after all that hard work they put into it "because it just doesn't make sense" to them...

[weaknespase]

Dev team simply don't have (i suppose, correct me, please, if i'm wrong) any Hebrew-speaking developer. I haven't seen it in the news, so they might still be searching for MacOS developer and now is the perfect chance to orchestrate a meeting between the team and a good jewish MacOS developer.

[abu_shawarib]

I was translating to Arabic and was searching for advance plural rules and came across this... lol.
Yea RTL is a pain if you're using custom GUI like in games. It needs experience in internationalization and it has to be thought out way earlier in the development. Though, if developers ever consider it after the 1.0 release, Maybe they should add ranges to plural forms because it doesn't make sense to list all the numbers from 11-99 (ends in 11,ends in 12 ..., ends in 99) every time I translate plurals.

[Dev-iL]

it doesn't make sense to list all the numbers from 11-99 (ends in 11,ends in 12 ..., ends in 99) every time I translate plurals.

Wow, I hadn't realized what a nightmare this was in Arabic. Honestly, I'm very doubtful that other languages go through the trouble of encoding every possibility correctly. I think it's reasonable to allow some mistakes if it means you can use a very small set of rules ("20%") to work correctly in most ("80%") cases.

If you're serious about doing these translations (and Arabic is about only 25% done), better save your energy for what's important, which is IMHO the texts themselves.

[Dev-iL]

Several years have passed. v2.0 is on the horizon, the development team expanded considerably, and the Arabic translation is nearing completion - is there a chance to spare some developer time to improving, if not properly fixing, RTL support?

Two of the biggest problems are:
1) the inverted ordering of lines in multi-line texts (such as scenario descriptions), and
2) handling of "formatting codes" (e.g. dynamic pluralizations, newlines, "hyperlinks" to keyboard bindings, etc.)

See also:
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=65460
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=61217