Blaster launch button

[Ishmaeel]

Are there any plans to make this button localizable? As far as I can see, that's the only piece of graphic that contains text.

[Hythlodaeus]

I recall suggesting this before, but according to supes, the icon size is a bit of a bitch IIRC. Don't forget there's also the alien PSI icon.

[Ishmaeel]

Yeah that too. I have been avoiding Ethereal missions

I bet he meant that certain localized strings would bust out of the icon, due to their length. I, however would suggest simply allowing to override the default icon wholesale.

Pretty much like we have a custom image for TFTD buttons (data\Resources\UI\reserve.png), we could also have a well known location for localized icons such as data\Resources\UI\Localized\ .

Translators could draw localized versions for these buttons and drop them into that folder, named like launch.pl-PL.png and the game could try to load the one that corresponds to the current locale. If no localized version was found, the game would simply fall back to the default graphic in the original game data.

[Kloqus]

Good idea to make an engine displaying this icons localized.
BTW, there is a Polish language version of this icon in UX1_PL.ZIP/UFOGRAPH\SPICONS.DAT (attached to Polish translation starting post). Polish players may use this DAT file instead of the original to make a localized Launch rocket icon.
There is in the file a PSI icon too (does the game use it?), which Polish version of it may stay the same as the original, I think.

[moriarty]

considering that we have those helpful little tooltips at the bottom of the screen now, perhaps somebody should simply make a "launch" icon and a "psi" icon without text, and we can simply shift the text to the tooltip text?

[kkmic]

That's a nice idea.

Why not leave the button alone then? It will have a hardcoded English caption, but there will be a translatable tip handy. Though it would be nice if the tip for this particular button (and the PSI one) will be at the top of the screen - next to the button.

[Ishmaeel]

I like the tooltip idea too. It's less work for devs & translators and it fits even better with the rest of the UI (all buttons in battlescape are glyphs - why would these need text?)

I cannot support the "hardcoded caption in English" though. It would look too out-of-place in an otherwise completely localized game.

Anyway, here's the naked versions of the buttons. Whatever comes next, I hope I will have saved somebody a ten-minutes worth of work.

[Kloqus]

I made and attached original icons without texts in original game format.

[kkmic]

I like them.