> On Mar 3, 2025, at 6:13 PM, Bernd Böckmann via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > Hi Eric, > >> Is it possible to build the table when apps start > > The search table is a crucial part of the format, as it stores the offsets of > the individual strings. So you cannot simply leave this out. But if you > establish the hard requirements that every string does not contain but ends > with a binary zero or some other marker, and the string ids are consecutive > and start at a certain number, one could generate the search table on the fly > without needing the translation source files. > >> and make the format editable without needing a special toolchain? > > Well, handling binary data almost always requires some "toolchain" :) Editing > of the UTF-8 source files can of course be done using an ordinary text > editor. But to "compile" the binary file from the sources, a tool is needed. > A GUI tool that can do both editing and .LNG generation would be nice to have.
I actually started working on solving this issue a while back with the FD-NLS Desktop Application for Linux, Mac and Windows. https://up.lod.bz/FDNLS_LNX <https://up.lod.bz/FDNLS_LNX> It was designed to work with the FD-NLS Github Repository. Plus, it creates both CodePage and UTF-8 files automatically. I got as far as having a very alpha initial version that could be used to edit the Package Meta Data that is used by programs like FDIMPLES to display package information. Editing that meta data was the biggest headache at the time. So, that was a very priority to get working. Even being very alpha, it has some neat features. A translator can work in multiple languages at one time. The editor flags new and problematic packages which need attention. I think the coolest feature is the real-time simulated preview of what the translation would look like in FDIMPLES. Unfortunately, other “projects” required my attention and I had to stop working on the Application. So, I did not get around to adding support for performing translations to the actual NLS for specific programs. Eventually, I would love to get back to the App. Add support for editing NLS on the various programs. Simplify and build in support for Git. Possible add real-time previews for those programs. Much, much more. > > I am currently not 100% satisfied with the format of the source files. > Luckily the binary .LNG format is independent of the source format. So if in > the future I implement another source format and "compiler", the binary file > should stay the same. > >> It could also use some sort of compression people have around anyway, such >> as GZ or ZIP :-) > > Sure it could use GZ. But that would blow up the code size by a factor of ten > or more, I guess. The primary design idea of SvarLANG is to keep things > minimal. The current decompressor is implemented in around 20 lines of C > code. The compressed .LNG file for FDISK is 41k, while the uncompressed is > 110k. So we consider this "efficient enough" that inclusion of a more > advanced compression algorithm is not justified. > > Bernd > > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
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