Chaos Intellect and Time & Chaos Translation Project

For the latest "language.sil" file click here.

This language.sil now contains the most current translations into French, Dutch, Spanish and German. 

Special thanks to

Project Scope:

Many customers over the years have requested a translated version of our software programs.  As you may appreciate, this is not an easy request to fulfill, there are a number of issues.  However, with this being said; if we can achieve the goal without impacting our English speaking customers and not slow down our development process significantly, then I believe that it is worth doing, both for customer satisfaction and to expand into new markets

Issues

  1. The English Language is embedded directly into the software.  All the text on buttons, popup menus, captions, tooltips and prompts are created directly within a program during creation.
  2. Translation Engines available on the internet do not translate an English expression into another language in context.  eg.  The term "Back up" may be oriented towards reversing an automobile and not the term that a user would associate with protecting data.
  3. Once we are able to earn a foreign language customer, to whom will they call for support?   ..... our staff in Texas ?????
  4. With over 5000 different languages spoken around the world;  how many languages are enough?  My initial thoughts would include French, German, Spanish and Italian.  I have concerns that this may disappoint those customers who speak a language that is not included.
  5. The impact to our English customers, in terms of program performance, speed of development.
  6. International Help files.  Let's face it, we can barely manage English now.
  7. Our entire web site is currently written in English and we have all seen the quality of some foreign language "on the fly" translations.
  8. If the translations are not done perfectly, will it result in a poorer reflection in the customers eyes than if we had not done it at all?

Strategy

Beginning with versions 7.0.3.1 of Intellect and 3.0.3.1 of Time & Chaos.  All program strings have been externalized to a file located in the program directory and is distributed with our software.  This by default would be the folders c:\program files\chaos software\intellect\ or c:\program files\chaos software\chaos7.  The file containing the translations is simply named:  "language.sil".  

I have decided that the best way to handle the translation is to open it up completely to our customers.  If you have been blessed to have (or worked hard to learn) a second language, and would like to contribute on a voluntary basis then I would sure appreciate your advice on any strings, wording and customizations that you might like to share.  I did take French for 12 years, my mother was French Canadian and unfortunately .... I am still illiterate in the language.  (I can however, point out "where the window is" and that "my pen is on the desk".  

"Language.sil" is a text file, however I would recommend that you do not edit it with a simple text editor as it is too difficult.  Rather I would recommend that you download a free language editor tool, that once installed will let you edit this file in a quite intuitive fashion.  You can download this here

The key to this file is that not every string needs to be translated.   Only if a string has a translation is it used, otherwise the default of English.  Further, some of these strings should never be translated, ie.  Our website, product name.  It is also conceivable that an incorrect translation may result in a program crash, so I would recommend that make a copy of "Language.sil" for such a case.

Thanks for reading and feel free to contact me either via voice or email with comments.  
Michael Whittingham
mikew@chaossoftware.com
(972) 759-1121 x 110