KHangMan - How to add a new language

1. Be sure you are working with the latest cvs HEAD sources of KHangMan by issuing a

   cvs up -dPA khangman

   in the kdeedu module.
   

   cd kdeedu/khangman
   

2. Enter the following commands in a konsole to create the directory and files for the new language:

   ./add_language <language_code>

   Here you must replace <language_code> with your language code.

   The program will refuse a non-valid language code!

3. The files now use the kvtml format. The tag <o> is for the word and the tag <t> is for the hint. Try to match the hint with the level of difficulty. The level 'Easy' will require an easy hint but the level 'Hard' will require the definition in the dictionary. Try not to use words of the same family in the hint, that would give the word away too easily!
   
   An example of a kvtml file is as follow:

   <?xml version="1.0"?> 
   <!DOCTYPE kvtml SYSTEM "kvoctrain.dtd"> 
   <kvtml> 
   <e> 
   <o>cane</o> 
   <t>è il tuo animale domestico preferito</t> 
   </e> 
   ...
   ...
   </kvtml>
    

4. Edit all indicated text files in the new directory with a text editor, and replace each word inside the <o> tag with a translated word and each hint inside a <t> with a translated hint. It is not really important that the exact meaning is preserved, but try to keep the length and level of difficulty roughly the same.
   You can include words with white space or - in them, in that case the white space or the - will be shown instead of the _.
   Please contact me if there is anything special related to your language so I can adapt the code to it (especially the special and accented characters).

   You can just translate the words but you can also adapt them following the level and add new words if you want. For example, "table" is in level easy in English but in your language, it can be level medium. Feel free to adapt the files to your language needs. The number of words in a file is not important, you can add some if you want.

   Note that you must use UTF-8 encoding when editing the files. If your editor can't do this, try using kwrite or kate. When opening a file in kwrite or kate you can select utf8 encoding with the top right combo box.

5. Enter the following command to install the new data files:

   make
   make install
   

   You may have to become root to run 'make install', depending on your installation.
   
   
6. Run the game and check that your language has been added:

   khangman
   

7. Instead of committing your files, please sent them to me tarred and gzipped. As there are now twenty two languages, a wizard (KNewStuff) is now included in KHangMan to easily download and install new languages that are placed on the website. This is done to reduce the size of the kdeedu module and it will also be done in KLettres, KStars and maybe KTouch.
   Please contact me by email (annemarie.mahfouf AT free DOT fr) if you need further information.
   When you send me the files, please don't forget to mention any special characters used in your language (put them in a text file, one per line and add this file in the tarball) and please mention any other specificity.
   Please never commit files in a BRANCH as it might break the game.
   
   

Author: Stefan Asserhäll & Anne-Marie Mahfouf
Last update: 2008-01-11