Localization

Fonts

Fonts files are used to correctly display characters of local languages in the Unigine-based project. The font file has a True Type font format and contains all of the local language characters.

To avoid incorrect display of language characters, you should add all of the required font files to your project folder and use the engine.gui.setFont() function when it is necessary to change the font. For example, to translate into Chinese, you should load your English-Chinesedictionary and set the corresponding font as follows:

Source code (UnigineScript)

engine.gui.setFont("my_project/gui/font_ch.ttf");

If the project supports your local language only, you can simply replace 2 font files font.ttf (for GUI widgets) and console.ttf (for console) in the data/core/gui directory with the font files containing the local language characters. The names of Unigine files should be preserved.

Character Encoding

All of the project files should be saved in UTF-8 encoding.

Notice

The encoding must be UTF-8 without BOM (Byte Order Mark).

Translation Dictionaries

To support several languages in your project, you need to use dictionaries, which are stored in the XML format. They are used to translate the GUI from one language into another.

Notice

You can store a separate dictionary for each language or you can create a single dictionary for all supported languages.

File Formats

Depending on the storage method of dictionaries, you should use the corresponding dictionary file format.

Dictionaries Stored in Separate Files

Source code (XML)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<dictionary version="1.00">
	<msg>
		<src>Source string</src>
		<tr>Translated string</tr>
	</msg>
</dictionary>

The root tag dictionary contains the msg child tag, which is used to define a word or phrase to be translated and has the following children:

src - a source string to be translated.
Notice
The punctuation marks should be included to the string; otherwise the string won't be translated.
tr - a translation string.

Single Dictionary for All Languages

Source code (XML)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<dictionary version="1.00">
	<msg>
		<src>Source string</src>
		<en>String translated to English</en>
		<ch>String translated to Chinese</ch>
		<ru>String translated to Russian</ru>
	</msg>
</dictionary>

The root tag dictionary contains the msg child tag, which is used to define a word or phrase to be translated and has the following children:

src - a source string to be translated.
Notice
The punctuation marks should be included to the string; otherwise the string won't be translated.
en, ch, ru or any other tag that contains a translation string.
Notice
You can use any tag to store the translation. You just have to specify the tag name as the second argument of the engine.gui.addDictionary() function to load the proper translation.

Managing Locale

To add the dictionary, use the engine.gui.addDictionary() function. To save the last loaded dictionary, use the engine.gui.saveDictionary() function. This function also allows you to save the currently loaded dictionary into another file. If you want to modify the dictionary, you can edit the XML file manually or by using the Xml class functions and then load it.

Notice

Dictionaries cannot be changed in run-time.

If you use a separate dictionary for each language, you should get access to translation as follows:

Source code (UnigineScript)

engine.gui.addDictionary("my_project/locale/my_project.ch"); // load English-Chinese dictionary
ui.updateWidgets();

Otherwise, you should specify a tag that contains the required translation as the second argument of the engine.gui.addDictionary() function:

Source code (UnigineScript)

engine.gui.addDictionary("my_project/locale/my_project.locale","ch"); // load the Chinese translation
ui.updateWidgets();

The updateWidgets() function is called to change the language after the required dictionary is added.

Input Methods

Unigine supports IMEs (Input Method Editors) that allow entering Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters by using the Latin keyboard.

Notice

Unigine doesn't support right-to-left and top-to-bottom languages.

To enter Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters, simply change your keyboard layout and start typing.

Last update: 2017-07-03

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Localization

In This Article:

See Also

Fonts

Character Encoding

Translation Dictionaries

File Formats

Dictionaries Stored in Separate Files

Single Dictionary for All Languages

Managing Locale

Input Methods