Space for translation strings is sometimes way too short

[Wuzzy2]

The space the translators are given for their texts is sometimes too short.
This has been observed by translating 0.9 to German. Many string lengths seem to be tailored for English and the English strings barely fit in. Logically, languages which are wordier than English WILL have problems. Keep also in mind that some languages are SIGNIFICANTLY wordier than English, for example: Finnish.

Here are some concrete examples of too short strings:

• The word “OR” which appears in construction and crafting menu does not permit a translation longer than two characters.
  *The bionic description field which is three lines high is WAY to short. The bionics screen clearly has enough space to sacrifice.
• Same goes for trait and profession descriptions in character creation screen. 3 lines just don’t cut it.
• Same goes for the character menu, which also uses 3 lines for trait descriptions.
• Translating the help is annoying. This is described in #4648.
• The main menu items. Even the English strings barely fit into a single line
  This may not be complete, there may be other examples I’ve missed.

The obvious solution is: Well, give us more space! ;-)

Tested in: 0df165b

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[Wuzzy2]

More examples of extremely scarce space:

• vehicle menu, where the menu items are listed
• main menu

An example of “just a bit scarce” space:

• vehicle stats

[VlasovVitaly]

#4728 fixes localized OR in construction menu. In next PR i will fix OR in Fabrication.

[i2amroy]

Is this still an issue?

[Wuzzy2]

Yes.

• the “OR” problem: This is done.
• Surprisingly, I managed to fit all the trait descriptions in the character menu into 3 lines. However in the character “window”, trait descriptions from mutations tend to be longer …
• The profession screen has now 4 lines for the description. I think this may be just enough, but I had to delete some unimportant text sometimes. Maybe the English text for all profession descriptions should be fitted into 3 lines to leave some “puffer” for more wordy languages.
• Help translation has been greatly improved and is no issue anymore.
• The vehicle menu has been greatly improved, giving more space to many things. However, it still fails when the smallest resoultion is used. The menu items still have to be fitted into a single line of less than 80 characters.
• The main menu scales up, but when you use the smallest resoultion, the translator still has to fit everything into one pretty short line.

[KA101]

Surprisingly, I managed to fit all the trait descriptions in the character menu into 3 lines. However in the character “window”, trait descriptions from mutations tend to be longer …

totally serious
OK, so how many characters am I allowed to use when writing mutation descriptions?

[Wuzzy2]

Sorry, I don’t know. How could I figure it out?

[kevingranade]

The real fix is allowing scrolling for all fields that display significant
amounts of text, maybe reserving some keys to do the scrolling.

[Wuzzy2]

This is a good idea and would help a lot.