Refactor ally dialogue in UtBS

[Wedge009]

#6155 highlights that the way the dialogue of a potential ally is handled is not good. Basically it appears in many cases strings are printed in quadruplicate to accommodate the four different potential ally characters. Suggest refactoring this not just to avoid the redundant strings and corresponding translation effort but also to avoid complications with female characters as @CelticMinstrel mentioned.

[MultiSeptim]

As a translator (czech), I don't mind multiple similar text strings (because they are easy to translate), but the inappropriate use of variable names, which are difficult to incorporate into translation. And Czech still uses Latin, I can't imagine what the troubles will be in other scriptures.

[Wedge009]

Re-opening due to reversion of #6165 via d5b95e6. I suspect it's unlikely that avoiding text redundancy and avoiding variables for translation efforts can be resolved together.

I want to highlight that the refactoring was not the only place where variables are used in translated text. So I consider that the question of what to do in those circumstances may also be relevant. A couple of examples:

wesnoth/data/campaigns/Dead_Water/scenarios/10_The_Flaming_Sword.cfg

Lines 272 to 275 in d5b95e6

	[message]
	speaker=Kai Krellis
	message= {WHISPER ( _ "Thank you, $spy_unit.name|. I will keep that in mind, but it may be hard for us to stop him with that teleporting trick he has.")}
	[/message]

wesnoth/data/campaigns/Heir_To_The_Throne/scenarios/20b_Underground_Channels.cfg

Lines 612 to 613 in d5b95e6

	male_message= _ "Should $unit.name| read the book?"
	female_message= _ "female^Should $unit.name| read the book?"

For more background, see the discussion in hrubymar10/wesnoth-cs#209.

[CelticMinstrel]

Reopened due to a discussion in hrubymar10/wesnoth-cs#209.

[stevecotton]

I think d5b95e6 reverted too much stuff, as it included reverting the variable-name change from ally_name to ally_id.

Edit: I'd mistakenly assumed this was also affecting 1.16, hadn't expected the translation team to already be working on master.

[Wedge009]

I think d5b95e6 reverted too much stuff, as it included reverting the variable-name change from ally_name to ally_id.

You previously made the point to try to make some sort of compatibility, despite the fact this was only applied to 1.17.x. That's what #6301 was supposed to include. The renaming made sense to me, but if you want to keep it then do you still require the (unfinished) 'compatibility' work to go with it? If not, it's probably better to just rename the variables separate to the text consolidation.

Edit: I'd mistakenly assumed this was also affecting 1.16, hadn't expected the translation team to already be working on master.

Pretty sure #6165 was only applied to master, not 1.16.

[stevecotton]

The renaming made sense to me, but if you want to keep it then do you still require the (unfinished) 'compatibility' work to go with it? If not, it's probably better to just rename the variables separate to the text consolidation.

@knyghtmare has put on the roadmap that he'll rewrite S12 for 1.17.5, so I'm happy if the current S12 doesn't have compatibility with 1.16.x save files. Does that finish the compatibility work with the currently-prepared code?

Sorry if I'm missing details here.

[Wedge009]

Details in #6165 discussion. The blocker was S12 not being conducive to the compatibility code I attempted. I've reinstated the renaming separately in 170c124.

[cooljeanius]

The renaming made sense to me, but if you want to keep it then do you still require the (unfinished) 'compatibility' work to go with it? If not, it's probably better to just rename the variables separate to the text consolidation.

@knyghtmare has put on the roadmap that he'll rewrite S12 for 1.17.5, so I'm happy if the current S12 doesn't have compatibility with 1.16.x save files. Does that finish the compatibility work with the currently-prepared code?

Sorry if I'm missing details here.

Is this still on the roadmap? ISTR him saying he'd given up on it...

[Wedge009]

You are referring to the campaign rewrite?

For this issue specifically, I recall I had to revert the consolidation effort because of translation overhead. The discussion is in my (reverted) PR and the linked Czech translation discussion.

[cooljeanius]

You are referring to the campaign rewrite?

Well, Knyght rewriting S12 of the campaign specifically; I think it was issue #6142 (currently postponed...)