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Re: [Enigma-devel] Re: Language icons in Enigma's main menu


From: Andreas Lochmann
Subject: Re: [Enigma-devel] Re: Language icons in Enigma's main menu
Date: Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:07:20 +0200
User-agent: IceDove 1.5.0.14eol (X11/20080509)


Hi,

Ronald Lamprecht schrieb:
Looking at several other webpages I currently favor
the idea of displaying a "What's your favorite language?"
page when starting Enigma for the first time. We could
ask for a user name at that point as well, even for the
video resolution. In a (much) later version we could
invite to a tutorial through the options and features
of the game or give hints about the ratings auto-update.

In which language will you ask your first question?

Hmm ... would be the default language, I think.
However, as soon as our freshling sees a list of
obviously different languages, he or she won't
bother the question and just opt for what he or
she recognizes.

The username/resolution questions will translate
immediately.

The main idea of addition of flags to avoid the problem of providing language names in a certain language. On the main screen we do not have the space to display many words. Thus the flags are nice a colorful and inviting mean for language selection that is understood by everyone. It works well on our homepage. It is just a question of a locally fitting background to use flags in their original color.

There'd be no problem in adding the original
flags besides the written language name. We could
even try to catch several flags, as we wouldn't
have issues with the space anymore. At least in
the higher resolutions -- I'm not sure whether
the list would fit on 640/480 or even 320/240.

Let us have a look at the Enigma language selection:

1.01:
- if the user starts Enigma with an startup switch "--lang" this selection is taken.
- otherwise the users previous Enigma language selection is taken
- otherwise the operating systms language selection is taken

The user can switch the language just in the submenu "Options"

The problem that arose is that a misconfigured language leads to an unreadable string for "Options" which makes it very difficult for the user to switch back to their language as they either have to know the button sequence by heart or have to know the startup switches.

Thus we need a totally language independent way to switch the languages anytime on the main screen - the flags.

I see what you mean. But there's a very similar and
even more difficult problem of the same kind: A gamer
could switch to a non-fullscreen resolution which is
larger than his display. Whereas some of us know how
to use Alt+Mouse to move the window, the average user
will not be able to navigate the menus anymore, and
can't switch back to his old resolution.

So, what we need is a general options-fallback-system,
which is easy to use for any player (i.e., not only
a commandline switch). The fallback would switch to
640x480 (or lower) and to the OS-default language,
if existent (think of Chinese, Arabic ...).

I do see no reason to bother a new user with an additional menu. If the user selected French in his operating system Enigma will start the first time in French and the user should be able to find the "Options" menu if he/she likes to select another language just for Enigma usage. Where is the problem?

There's no problem, just the kindness to ask for
the language and to invite to use a user name from
the beginning.

Best greets,
Andreas






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