To the translator:

Item 1: Thank you for your help!

MagicSelector has the following types of text that need translation:

* The menus
* The menuhelp
* All warning and information requesters
* The windowtitles

Here follows instructions on how to make a correct translation:

This directory has the file MagicSelector.empty that you can fill with
text in your language. The corresponding English text can be found in the
commented line below each entry.

A .ct is easy to fill in. Here is a short sample of the MagicSelector.nor file:

; Norsk
## version $VER: MagicSelector.catalog 1.60 (1.2.95)
## codeset 0
## language norsk
;
LOC_PatternTitle
Mønster
;
LOC_SoundTitle
Lyd
;
LOC_Workbench
Workbench
;
LOC_Window
Vinduer
;

The semicolon is used for comments. LOC_... are my internal definitions and must
not be changed. The sample above shows how I handle hotkeys for menus. First
comes the hotkey followed by a \0 to terminate that "string", then comes the
menutext. I Use a space for no hotkey at all. (This is the Commodore proposed
standard to handle hotkeys in Localization)

Long lines can be broken apart with a \ at the end like this:

LOC_LONG_LINE
Let's say that this is a very long line.\n\
This is the 2:nd line. That's all folks!
;

The Locale system knows how to handle all normal C conventions like:

\n - New line in a requester

%s	- This is to insert external strings in the text, commonly filenames like in:
     "Can't open file 'foo' for writing.". In the .ct file it looks like this:
     Can't open file %s for writing. Make sure you don't forget the %s stuff.

%d - The same as above but for numbers.

To help you test for syntax errors in your translations and also to see if
some requesters got an ugly look (eg to long or wide, adjust with \n), you must
use the the Commodore CatComp program. It's copyrighted, so I can't distribute
it but it can be found in the OS developement disks from Commodore.


CatComp makes a .catalog file from your .ct file. The .catalog file shall be
named MagicSelector.catalog and put in a directory with the same name as your language
spelled in your own language. For example: A german .catalog file shall have
the following path/filename:
Locale/Deutsch/MagicSelector.catalog

To make MagicSelector load your catalog file you have to select your language in
prefs/locale, but that you know already..

If you notice an error in your translation when you run MagicSelector, you will have to
reboot the computer in order to make the Amiga reload the corrected .catalog
file as the Amiga won't load a catalog from disk more than once to save
time. (Avail flush won't help either)

CatComp can be used this way to create a .catalog file:
CatComp MagicSelector.cd MagicSelector.nor CATALOG catalogs/Norsk/MagicSelector.catalog

CatComp only uses the MagicSelector.cd file for syntax control of your .ct file.

Many thanks for your work!

Regards



Øyvind Falch