Argent Forge 1.2.0

Argent Forge 1.2.0

The Language Constructor. It shows a mod's LANGUAGE lump as a table you can read the way the menu
will be read, and writes the colours you see back into the file as the codes the engine expects.

Translating a language

• One row per string, one column per language file. The dropdown at the top says which file new
  strings go into and which column is the original; Additional ticks the other files you want
  beside it. A file you didn't tick isn't in the table, so an archive with nine language files
  doesn't put nine columns in front of you.

• A string the second file doesn't define yet is filled with the first file's text in a quieter
  colour. That's a placeholder: the table saying 'this one isn't translated' without making you run
  a report. Translate it and it stops being quiet.

• Colour inside the text. The engine reads a colour as \c plus a letter inside the string, and the
  table shows the words in that colour with the code hidden, which is what the menu will look like.
  Right-click a cell for Colour... - the program's own picker, snapped to the nearest colour the
  game can actually draw, written in at the caret - Remove the colour from this cell, Copy and
  Paste.

  

• One click opens a cell. Enter writes it, so does moving to another cell, Esc takes back what you
  typed, and Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y inside the window are the text editor's undo and redo. A long value
  opens a field tall enough to read all of it, and keeps the file's \n markers visible where it
  breaks the line, so a line break is something you can see yourself deleting.

• Table and editor follow each other. Pick a row and the editor moves to its line; pick a line and the
  row lights up. A string kept in another file of the archive opens that file rather than telling you
  it isn't here, and only the strings of the files in view are listed, so a row is never an empty
  promise.

Menus

• A $key you invent is written for you. Type a name no language file defines into any field the
  player reads in the Menu Constructor, and the key is created in the file you pointed at and as a
  placeholder in every Additional one.
• The Menu Constructor got the same language dropdown, and its preview now draws the menu in the
  language picked there.
• Shift selects a run of rows or a run of menus, and the run acts as one: it moves, copies, pastes
  and deletes together. A paste of four blocks comes back with a single Ctrl+Z.
• The three constructor buttons in the text toolbar show only over a file one of them can edit, and
  Tools still lists all three for the times you want a window without the file in front of you.

Corrected

• MENUDEF.txt and MENUDEF.dat are the archive's MENUDEF now. A comparison that included the
  extension missed them, so a mod's menus weren't offered to the constructor.
• A binary lump isn't a language table and no longer opens as one.
• A string added to a block copies the indentation of the line above it instead of putting a tab on
  top of the file's default.
• The Menu Constructor's language dropdown showed a file while the window still thought none was
  picked, so a new $key was refused without a word. It now writes the key into the file it shows
  you, and a key typed into an empty field takes its own name as the text rather than nothing.
• The Menu Constructor read its language files once, when the window opened, so a translation typed
  into the table kept showing its old text in the preview. The preview reads them again on every
  redraw, and a cell written in the table reaches the archive entry as it reaches the editor.
• Preferences > Extra Features split up: the image editor, the three constructors and the launcher
  integration each have a page of their own now. The old Import SLADE Settings button and the
  AceZDL settings live under Settings > Extra Features > Integration.

Guide

Translating a language
walks through the window from a LANGUAGE lump you've never opened, including what a \c code is
and why a placeholder is worth having. The other pages are in
docs/user.

The reader behind the table is checked headlessly against real mod files before a build ships: every
lump has to read, edit and write back without touching a byte the window didn't mean to change -
4801 labels across 29 language lumps this time, zero losses.

Get it

argentforge_1.2.0_win64_portable.zip below: unpack the folder anywhere and run ArgentForge.exe.
Nothing is installed and no file is written next to the exe. It keeps its own settings folder, so an
existing SLADE install is untouched, and Settings > Extra Features > Integration pulls an old SLADE
configuration across once. Needs 64-bit Windows.