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Started by Spike, January 27, 2012, 01:27:25 AM

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Spike

Today I took time to make screenshots and post messages about all the things that disturb me when  look at current Simutrans version, and which I think are important to be changed.

In the past I have posted such i the German forum. I see that some of the problems like bad texts still exist after two, three years since I pointed out the problems of the translator.

This time I post here, in the hope to find a bigger audience,and maybe get more acceptance for these things. In some cases I have feedback from people outside the forum community which was not so good, and I'd like to have something as something to be proud of and not something that looks like a half-assed piece of nerd software.

New features are added all the time, but usability, clarity, consistency are neglected. For a mature program like Simutrans, this is ... underwhelmng.

I want that my inheritance is handled with more care to details, and give players a good experience. Cleaning up texts, make sure they are consistent, give dialogs a good layout are all fairly easy tasks compared to the algorithms that are often discussed.

I wish that these simple tasks not be so neglected and the program is made looking proper, so that I can show it to people and not need to add an excuse for the bad quality of the texts and  UI layout right away :-[

I want to be proud of being the creator of Simutrans, and not need to be ashamd of the bad state of these details :(


Spike

Even the project description on Sourceforge has typos.

QuoteSimutrans is a transport simulation games. Planes, ships, trains, trams, trucks, busses, or monorails are at your disposal. But factories have contracts and passengers will only travel to their own destinations. Many graphic sets (paks) are available

"games" should be game.
The sentance lacks a full stop at the end.

Hey this is the first thing visitors see about the project on sourceforge. And there is so little care taken :-[

Edit: Feature list has typos, too:

Quotemany languagaes available, many platforms

-> languages

"supported" after platforms might be good.


Dwachs

Imho, a good share of these reports can be fixed by yourself, if you have an account at the translator website. If you lost your password, it can be resetted by admins (just ask).

And nobody like to do pixel pushing in gui windows  :-X It would be highly desirable to have a gui framework that can adjusts window sizes automatically...
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and maggikraut.

Spike

Quote from: Dwachs on January 27, 2012, 09:06:38 AM
Imho, a good share of these reports can be fixed by yourself, if you have an account at the translator website. If you lost your password, it can be resetted by admins (just ask).

I do not believe in the power of the translator. I have formerly explained why:

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=3688.msg35835#msg35835
http://simutrans-forum.de/forum/thread.php?threadid=4971&hilight=translator&hilightuser=378

I'll not write and explain all that again. I believe there were even more threads about this topic.

I'll fix texts that I find to be bad in my pak48.Excentrique translation files (already been doing so since I started it), and let the community prove with the translator tool that they can do better. The translator produces bad quality since years, and I doubt that it will get much better in future. I'll do my part my way, make it as good as I can,  but I'll be fair enough to let you know if I see problems.

isidoro

Maybe to implement a preview is not feasible in this kind of quick development model we have, but what about some hints in the translator?  Each string can optionally have a minimum, desirable, and maximum length in characters.  When building one of the standard GUI objects, those could be automagically extracted from the size of the object...

Those hints would be shown at the translator application along with some general guidelines: capitalization, marks, etc.


Lmallet

Quote from: isidoro on January 27, 2012, 12:43:38 PM
Each string can optionally have a minimum, desirable, and maximum length in characters.
I think this is the greatest problem with the translator.  Having to export the language file, copy it to Simutrans, check for mistakes, and repeat is very time consuming and could lead some people to be lazy (not to mention the people who translate without checking).

I agree with Isisoro, but would remove the "optionally" part.  Every text box, button, etc. should have a max. length (enforced in the code), and those values should also be enforced in the translator.

prissi

Please submit a patch, and then we are taking.

Sourceforge is a great too to enter text, as it all goes via UI elements where the normal spellchecker does not work. And Hajo, I think you should even see the edit button for the feature list. I edited it myself anyhow.

Spike

Quote from: prissi on January 27, 2012, 09:10:51 PM
Sourceforge is a great too to enter text, as it all goes via UI elements where the normal spellchecker does not work. And Hajo, I think you should even see the edit button for the feature list. I edited it myself anyhow.

Yes, I could have done that. When I'm in a better mood next time I'll do. Thanks for fixing the text, though :)