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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0006638The Dark ModFeature proposalpublic25.07.2025 19:20
ReporterGeep Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeveritynormalReproducibilityhave not tried
Status newResolutionopen 
Product VersionTDM 2.13 
Summary0006638: Feature request: Provide Minimal Engine Support for Fade-In Translations in Readables
DescriptionMost TDM fonts lack non-ASCII glyphs for European languages, and to add them would take a lifetime. Instead, it has been proposed that each readable page is shown -
- first is English, in the mapper-specified font
- after a number of seconds, in the current user-selected language, with an appropriately-scaled font that offers the needed diacritics.

To implement this feature would require one-time creation of a revised set of readable GUIs. A prerequisite to starting that revision work would be the minimal engine support requested here.

The engine should expose the following string parameters to the GUI:

    gui::titleEnglish
    gui::bodyEnglish
    gui::titleTranslated
    gui::bodyTranslated

The first 2 are just like current gui::title and gui::body, except they always serve up the English strings.
The final 2 are just like current gui::title and gui::body, except that they would serve empty strings (and so cause the GUI code to suppress a transition) when -

1) there is no translation available in the current language, or
2) the current language is English.

However, regarding (2), during testing, you need to serve English text as well, so there must be an additional boolean CVAR, e.g.:

sys_readables_debug_show_english_as_if_translated (default is 0/false)
Additional InformationThe above describes the minimal support desired in the TDM 2.14 timeframe. In this particular feature request, how long the starting-font English is first shown (assuming there is a transition coming) is a fixed constant value.

If possible, it would be good to provide more flexibility. But one can't just pass a variable to GUI like...

    “gui::secondsToTransition”

... because onTime can't take a variable value. So, I would need help proposing a mechanism for that.


For a fuller discussion and mockup, and possible longer term enhancements, see https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22964-proposal-fade-in-translations-for-readables/.
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Date Modified Username Field Change
25.07.2025 19:20 Geep New Issue