Retroarch: The English text in Retroarch needs to be polished

[pepedopolous]

I think it would be a pity to put out a big new release of Retroarch when truthfully there's a few cases of incorrect grammar or inconsistencies in the some of the menu sub-labels. If you want, I could help out with this.

P

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[twinaphex]

Examples please, we can't delay this any longer and you should have gotten straight to the point here and listed specific examples already.

[pepedopolous]

Well now I might seem like a real pedant! However, for me it does spoil the slick XMB interface.

Examples.

Saving
Change settings for the saving --> Change settings for saving

The same problem is in the sub-label for Recording, Achievements, Playlists.

For Network, 'Change network settings' would be better.
For Privacy, 'Change privacy settings' would be better.

For Video, Audio, and Input, it would be more consistent if the labels started with 'Change...' instead of 'Adjusts...'

Load Core --> Select a core to use
Load Content --> Select game or media to load [Just a suggestion]
Help --> Learn how to use RetroArch
Information --> Display information about the system [Just a suggestion]

P

[twinaphex]

I didn't write most of those labels.

As for Load Core - I think it's fine.

I think nothing in here is really worth it delaying the release for at any rate.

[pepedopolous]

Sure. It's not stopping anyone using the program, just minor aesthetics.

[twinaphex]

We can focus on it after release maybe.

[RobLoach]

Just having the labels is amazing, gives us a good base to work off of. If you provide updated text, I can create PRs to fix them.

[RobLoach]

Load Core --> Select a core to use

Doesn't describe what a core is, or what "Loading" means.

Help --> Learn how to use RetroArch

This text doesn't apply on Lakka.

[pepedopolous]

Load Core --> Select a core to use
Doesn't describe what a core is, or what "Loading" means.

I think it follows that any user installing RA has internet and so can and must find out for themselves. A 'core' is an 'application' but in this case the developer terminology 'core' is less confusing to a user. The UI is not the place to explain the meaning of 'core'.

If a user happens to have the correct roms and cores, they only need to scan their games directory and use the resulting playlists; they would never need to use 'Load Core'.

Help --> Learn how to use RetroArch
This text doesn't apply on Lakka.

If we can't use the name 'Retroarch' in the UI, fair enough, but the current label 'Learn more about how it works' is just ugly in English. Sure, maybe in some other language it sounds perfectly fine. However, in English it is unclear what 'it' refers to. If my first suggestion isn't good then maybe something like 'Learn more about how to use this application'.

[micochops]

I'd like to propose other changes to the English text and submenu labels for consistency, brevity, and clarity 👍

Note the strikethrough, here it means the text is in RetroArch but I think it's better to removed or altered. Bold here means text is added.

Main Menu:
Load Core -> Select which core application we wish to use.
Load Content -> Select which content we wish to start.
Online Updater -> Download add-ons, components, and contents for RetroArch.
(removed the "s" in contents, note that I also added a comma after "component" i.e., making use of the Oxford comma if that's ok)
Information -> Display core, network, and system information (also added the comma after network).
Help -> Learn more about how it the program works. (for consistency purposes. I used "the program" instead of "it" because if we look at the label for Quit RetroArch, it says "Quit the program.")

Settings Menu: (i'd like to echo @pepedopolous's comment about consistency)
Driver -> Change drivers used for this by the system.
Video -> Adjusts Change video output settings for video output.
Audio -> Adjusts Change audio output settings for audio output.
Input -> Adjusts Change joypads, keyboard, and mouse settings for joypads, keyboard and mouse. (removed the "s" in joypad, also added a comma after "keyboard")
Core -> Change core settings for the core.
Saving -> Change saving settings for the saving.
Logging -> Change logging settings for the logging.
Onscreen display -> Change display and keyboard overlay, display overlay, keyboard overlay and onscreen notifications settings (note the comma after the first "overlay", also removed "s" in "notification")
User Interface -> Change user interface settings for the user interface.
Achievements -> Change achievement settings for the achievements.
Playlists -> Change playlist settings for the playlists.

What do you guys think? I can also go over the submenus for each item if you think the above changes are good so far. Hope I was able to convey properly what each setting does.

Thanks all!

[pepedopolous]

Thumbs up from me!

[RobLoach]

While I'm not a technical writer, I think it may carry more impact if we described what changing the settings does. For Video, for example, if the user scrolls over "Settings", and then scrolls down to "Video", it is assumed that they already know it will change "Video Settings". Describing what results when they make those changes will be more helpful:

Making changes to the Video Settings will...

Improve performance and video output quality.

Making changes to the Achievement Settings will...

Track achievement progress on RetroArchievements.

Making changes to the Directory Settings will...

Change locations where RetroArch expects files to be.

Making changes to the User Interface settings will...

Affect how the user interface and menu looks and behaves.

In your mind, say "Making changes to this will..." and then use whatever you say next.

[micochops]

This is a valid point. We just have to find a way to somehow combine describing what changing each setting _does_ with what it is _about_.

[micochops]

With the sub labels now in effect, I was just wondering if we still need msg_hash_us.c? I noticed this is the text displayed when a user presses the Select button. Is it not a redundancy? Or is msg_hash_us.c used for something else other than for the purposes specified above?

[vffhr]

I think it would be nice to have consistently capitalized menu items.

Most menu items are in title case; all words capitalized except for "minor" words like "the", "of", "and", "in", "on" and "for".

Here are some examples that don't follow this convention:

• Parent directory
• Watch shader files for changes
• Create game-options file
• Max swapchain images
• Start netplay host
• Connect to netplay host
• Enable menu audio
• Start directory
• Show frame count on FPS display
• Allow to rename entries
• Allow to remove entries
• Allow rotation
• Don't overwrite SaveRAM on loading savestate
• Background opacity
• Show Import content Tab
• Show date / time
• Show battery level
• Show core name
• Pause when menu activated
• Threaded tabs
• Don't run in background
• Force-disable sRGB FBO (Load Context-Specific Game Options) (other names with dashes capitalize the second word, for example "Load Context Specitic Game Options".)

Also most of the items in system information and hotkeys.

Some capitalize minor words:

• Sort Saves In Folders
• Sort Savestates In Folders
• Show Inputs On Overlay
• Hide Overlay In Menu
• Set Password For Disabling Kiosk Mode

Some terms are used inconsistently. For example:

• "Run-Ahead", "RunAhead" and "Run Ahead"
• "SaveRAM" and "Save RAM"
• "Savefile" and "Save file" (in Directory menu) and "Save" (in Saving menu)

There is a space before and after the "/" in "Show date / time" unlike others such as "System/BIOS".

The "auto" prefix is sometimes used with no space ("Autosave"), a space ("Auto Index") or a dash ("Auto-apply").

"SwitchRes" in "CRT SwitchRes" has no space or dash between the words. This might be intentional but to me it seems a little bit odd seeing the name of an option using UpperCamelCase (as opposed to a name of a application like "RetroArch").

"Releasedate" in "Releasedate Month" and "Releasedate Year" has no space between the words (also I think the year should be listed before the month).

[micochops]

Hey! Thanks for these @vffhr

Volunteering myself to make another PR updating the English text if guys here deems it appropriate/necessary.

[orbea]

@vffhr and @micochops Has anything been done to resolve these inconsistencies or other issues listed here?

[micochops]

Hey @orbea, sorry bout this. Been busy with holiday season stuff. Will get to it this week. Thanks for the reminder!