Quick guide ‐ Create a Language pack - wofsauge/External-Item-Descriptions GitHub Wiki

Description folders explained

To find the description files, go into the folder of the mod and then into the "descriptions" folder. In there, there are two subfolders: "ab+", which contains all descriptions for ab+ content, and "rep", which contains descriptions relevant to Repentance. This includes new items and features, but also descriptions for existing items of which the effect got changed with Repentance.

Create a new translation pack

  1. Find out what your language code is using this Website: found here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/localization/languages. For example, the Language code for English is "en_us. For Hungarian it would be "hu".
  2. to create a new language file, you simply need to create a copy of the "en.lua" files inside the "descriptions" folders and name them like your language code. for example: "hu.lua" for Hungarian.
  3. Open the renamed file and change the first variable languageCode from "en_us to your language code. In this case "hu"
  4. Change the EID.descriptions[languageCode].languageName variable, to change the display name of the Language in MCM.
  5. Lastly, go into the "features" folder of the mod, and open the "eid_language_manager.lua" file. At the top of the file, add your language code to the EID.Languages table. Now you can use MCM to select your language or use your languagecode in the eid_config.lua file to select your language.

Tips when working on translation packs

  • Always make backups!: Always make a backup of your progress in a different folder than the EID folder. The reason is that everytime a mod has an update, the whole folder gets deleted and rewritten, therefore all your changes in there will be deleted as well.
  • Send updates regularly: There are currently over 1600 descriptions to translate. Since that's a lot of work that takes time and effort, it's always important to send us your current progress as a backup as well. That way, if you ever feel like not continuing on the translations anymore, the next interested person can use your progress as a starting point and not have to do everything from scratch.
  • Start on the AB+ translation first: The AB+ descriptions should be translated first because the Repentance descriptions are designed like an "Add-on" to ab+.

How descriptions work

In general, a description entry is just a table with up to 3 values. It can look like this:

{"2", "The Inner Eye", "Triple shot#↓ Tears down"},

the first entry contains the id of the item and is purely informational. it makes it easier for us to navigate in the big files and find entries quicker.

the second entry is the item name EID will display in the given language. The name of the item therefore can be translated here.

the third entry is the most important. It is the description of the item. Some symbols have special use cases. For example: # starts a new bullet point, !!! turns into a single Yellow exclamation-mark, and ↑ ↓ Arrows are used for the green and red arrow icons. Additionally, text inside two curly brackets, for example {{SecretRoom}}, describe icons. Those should NOT be translated.

More on the description topic can be found here: https://github.com/wofsauge/External-Item-Descriptions/wiki/Descriptions-and-Formatting