Unicode

[neko259]

Minecraft doesn't listen to this feature request, so maybe you wiill :)
I need to type cyrillic symbols in chat, and I need unicode for this. Can you implement it?

[benajamin]

What about signs, too?

[neko259]

Yes.

[celeron55]

This is a limitation of Irrlicht's font and input system. Somebody has made a TTF font rendering system but it's not (yet?) included in the native Irrlicht distribution (only patches), so it's too much of a hassle to use, apparently there are some cross-platform issues too:

http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=37296
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=220810#220810

[neko259]

This is a limitation of Irrlicht's font and input system. Somebody has made a TTF font rendering system but it's not (yet?) included in the native Irrlicht distribution (only patches), so it's too much of a hassle to use, apparently there are some cross-platform issues too:

http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=37296
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=220810#220810

Too bad. Thanks for the answer.

[robotest]

as of 0.4.7 TrueType font is allowed and used

[Evergreen]

as of 0.4.7 TrueType font is allowed and used

This topic is two years old. Why do people not look at the dates anymore?

[neko259]

as of 0.4.7 TrueType font is allowed and used

This topic is two years old. Why do people not look at the dates anymore?

Because the problem is still not fixed. I host a minetest server for over 3 years and I still cannot type my native language. In fact, it is the only software I know that still does not use utf8 :(

[Krock]

Because the problem is still not fixed. I host a minetest server for over 3 years and I still cannot type my native language. In fact, it is the only software I know that still does not use utf8 :(

UTF-8 contains many, many different characters. It's a theme since long time and will be (hopefully) used in the next Minetest release.

[neko259]

UTF-8 contains many, many different characters. It's a theme since long time and will be (hopefully) used in the next Minetest release.

Emm, so what? Many free fonts contain them too, what's the difficulty in picking any of them?

[Krock]

Emm, so what? Many free fonts contain them too, what's the difficulty in picking any of them?

Not the fonts are the problem.
From what I heard, the chat and almost every part in the interface would break compability to older Minetest versions.

[neko259]

Emm, so what? Many free fonts contain them too, what's the difficulty in picking any of them?

Not the fonts are the problem.
From what I heard, the chat and almost every part in the interface would break compability to older Minetest versions.

Compatibility was broken several times already. For example, 0.4.11 is incompatible to 0.4.10. Glass textures are buggy, meshes don't work in older versions. There is no point in maintaining compatibility in one parts of the game while others are broken.

[maikerumine]

Just sayin' it does KINDA FKING SUCK that I am unable to speak or read my Japanese friends dialogue while playing online. it is kind of depressing actually to see nothing. We need to somehow upgrade the fonts so all languages are readable and writable. Just this newb's two cents.

[Krock]

Compatibility was broken several times already. For example, 0.4.11 is incompatible to 0.4.10. Glass textures are buggy, meshes don't work in older versions.

That's not a complete incompability - older clients still can join worlds and play, just without some features.

It's time to use UTF-8 or Unicode IMO

[neko259]

That's not a complete incompability - older clients still can join worlds and play, just without some features.

What's the point of maintaining compatibility with old clients in open source? Anyone can get a new version free of charge and without any difficulty.

[rubenwardy]

It may take a while for a build to be made available for the platform, new versions may be buggy / not work for that user, user can't be bothered to update.

Keeping compatibility shouldn't stand in the way of progress, but we shouldn't break compatibility willy-nilley

[Rui]

[DELETED]

[Gael de Sailly]

What is exactely the problem ?
Is it that Irrlicht don't support specials characters at all, or does it support it but in another encoding than UTF-8 ?
Changing the characters encoding is possible in Lua. In C++… I don't know, but I suppose it's possible too.

[Wuzzy]

From what I have heard, code for this has been written by xyz ages ago.
Said code is under GPLv2, theoretically it just needs to be merged.

Said code has been merged by Freeminer. Freeminer has proper UTF-8 support now. Finally! At least one of the games in the Minetest family has made it.

So it is about time that Minetest catches on here. :-)

[Rui]

[DELETED]

[rubenwardy]

Wuzzy, we can't merge GPL code. It is incompatible with LGPL. Freeminer is like a leach. They can take commits from us, and they do, regularly, but we can't take any from them. Kind of an unfair comparison, but you can see my logic. I hope.

Minetest is an internationally marketed game, so full support for other languages is important.

For the reference of other people, IME stands for Input Method Editor and is the technology that allows you to 'type' characters that aren't on your keyboard. Usually on an onscreen keyboard that you click.

[Wuzzy]

Oops, I wanted to say “LGPLv2.1”. Luckily, xyz wrote the code before Freeminer changed the license. So back in the time where Freeminer was still very young.

Here is the “utf8” branch by xyz:
https://github.com/xyzz/freeminer/tree/utf8

Look into LICENSE.txt. It's still LGPLv2.1.

Here is the Minetest issue which started it all: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/1106

I don't know how easy it will be, after over 1 year, to merge this into Minetest. But code has certainly written.


Maybe someone should talk to xyz to be sure? ;-)