Bug or Feature? Keybindings & language

[Edi]

Hello,

First post here, and I want to thank everyone involved for an awesome game.

However, I ran into some very strange behavior yesterday when I installed the latest dev release of UFO: AI, from muton's compilation. The filename was ufoai-2.3-dev-29004-Debug-pentium3-O1-sse-7z-small-win32.exe and it installed quite handily.

I use the English language version, but for some reason when going into the input options and looking at the keybindings, they appear in Finnish. I'm located in Finland, and that's what the Windows location info says, but I have an English language Windows XP Pro and I do not ever use any programs localized to Finnish if I can help it. I could change the language of the game interface to anything I chose from the list, but no matter what I picked, the keybinding explanations stayed in Finnish.

It seems like for some reason the game was using the selected interface language files for everything else, but it always mapped the keybindings to the Windows location info and picked that language for them. I found this HIGHLY annoying. It's also an issue for users who may be in other countries and have their PC location info set according to that and then get something that is only gibberish to them. It is also an issue if there are multiple users in the same household who speak different languages and only use one language in common.

There is a workaround:

Go to the [drive]:\[installdirectory]\UFOAI-2.3-dev\base\i18n directory, make a new directory (e.g. Archive) and dump all the language subdirectories except the one you want in there. This forces the game to use the only available language file to display the keybindings in the correct language regardless of any other settings. Obviously this workaround locks the game into that one language and you need to restore the appropriate archived directories to their normal location to have the option to change the interface language.

To me, this behavior seems to be a bug, but since I know next to nothing about the architecture and the mechanics of the interface, I'm not quite sure. It could be a feature as a result of certain coding issues, but it is certainly not expected behavior. It could also be a Windows issue, which is why this post is here. For this reason it should be looked at if anyone finds the time.

Thank you for your time.

[Edi]

Time to bump this thread. It has been read quite a few times, presumably also by the developers, and this same issue seems to still be in force with newer iterations of the game.

Minor as it is, it would be nice to get some verification on whether it is a bug or a feature. I can live with either classification, it's the not knowing that drives me up the wall. Right now I'm again needing to use the workaround described every time I remove the game and install a new version, since this is independent of the game profile files and related directly to things in the game install folder structure.

In any case, thank you Destructavator, Mattn, geever and all the other developers for an awesome game! A lot of commercial stuff only dreams of getting where this game already is and too often people only talk about what doesn't work and ignore everything that does.

[bayo]

yes, i dont know why nobody reply to confirm or not...

[Mattn]

please open a bug ticket for this

[Edi]

Added to tracker: Link

Hopefully that's good enough. I copied the opening post from here and clarified a couple of things as well as put in my system specs. Need anything else, post here and I'll go comment.

[balasar]

I want to confirm that this also happens with me, but I have the key story in Russian. (Windows I have with the Russian localization). I also noticed that the tip box "Tips of the Day" at the drag, appears in Russian, regardless of language choice in the game.
Perhaps it depends somewhat on the system settings?
rev29196
Athlon5400+/2G/Gf9800/WinXP_sp3

[balasar]

I checked on another system where the selected region of Ukraine. Regardless of the choice of language in the game in these areas (history of keys,tip box) used translation from Ukrainian po-file.

Also shown in the screenshot is placed on the bugtracker ID: 2976922http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2976922&group_id=157793&atid=805242

rev29196
PhII/2G/Gf7900GS/WinXP_sp3

[Edi]

Hrm, excuse me for asking another stupid question, but when I submitted this bug to the tracker, should I have assigned it to someone? Because given how I know next to nothing on who does what, I figured the team would sort it out among themselves and that just tossing it at someone would be...presumptuous...?

[bayo]

Yes, the team manage it itself.

[Edi]

This issue is still extant in the 2.4 version. Should this thread be moved to the development version bugs subforum?

The issue has been reported twice on the bug tracker, first here and later here.

[Edi]

This issue is actually far more broken than it used to be earlier. Comments added to the bug tracker item (the later one).

The language bug renders the game completely unplayable without significant fiddling around with either Windows regional settings or files and folders related to the game. If that's the first experience people get of the game, they will never come back.

[Edi]

The language selection issue has been fixed, but the keybindings are still broken in the sense that they show up in the wrong language on Windows. This is an annoyance more than a serious bug, but still irritating. The tracker items for language issues have been updated with detailed information.

[Edi]

This issue has also been fixed now. A big thank you is in order and this will make things a lot easier for a lot of new users now that the language related UI issues are history.