OpenTTD-patches/readme.txt

OpenTTD README
Last updated:    $LastChangedDate: 2004-12-24 00:25:11 +0100 $
Release version: 0.3.6
------------------------------------------------------------------------


Table of Contents:
------------------
1.0) About
2.0) Contacting
 * 2.1 Reporting Bugs
3.0) Supported Platforms
4.0) Running OpenTTD
5.0) OpenTTD features
6.0) Configuration File
7.0) Compiling
8.0) Translating
 * 8.1 Guidelines
 * 8.2 Translation
 * 8.3 Previewing
9.0) Troubleshooting
X.X) Credits


1.0) About:
---- ------
OpenTTD is a clone of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, a popular game originally
written by Chris Sawyer.  It attempts to mimic the original game as closely
as possible while extending it with new features.

OpenTTD is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0. For
more information, see the file 'COPYING'.

2.0) Contacting:
---- ----------
The easiest way to contact the OpenTTD team is by submitting bug reports or
posting comments in our forums. You can also chat with us on IRC (#openttd
on irc.freenode.net).

The OpenTTD homepage is http://www.openttd.org/.

You can also find the OpenTTD forums at
http://www.tt-forums.net/index.php?c=20


2.1) Reporting Bugs:
---- ---------------
To report a bug, please create a SourceForge account and follow the bugs
link from our homepage. Please make sure the bug is reproducible and
still occurs in the latest daily build or the current SVN version. Also
please look through the existing bug reports briefly to see whether the bug
is not already known.

The SourceForge project page URL is: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openttd/
Click on "Bugs" to see the bug tracker.

Please include the following information in your bug report:
        - OpenTTD version (PLEASE test the latest SVN/daily build)
        - Bug details, including instructions how to reproduce it
        - Platform and compiler (Win32, Linux, FreeBSD, ...)
        - Attach a saved game or a screenshot if possible
        - If this bug only occurred recently please note the last
          version without the bug and the first version including
          the bug. That way we can fix it quicker by looking at the
          changes made.


3.0) Supported Platforms:
---- --------------------
OpenTTD has been ported to several platforms and operating systems. It shouldn't
be very difficult to port it to a new platform. The currently working platforms
are:

	Windows - Win32 GDI (faster) or SDL
	Linux - SDL
	FreeBSD - SDL
	Mac OS X - SDL
	BeOS - SDL
	MorphOS - SDL
	OS/2 - SDL


4.0) Running OpenTTD:
---- ----------------

Before you run OpenTTD, you need to put the game's datafiles into the data/
subdirectory. You need the following files from the original version
of TTD as OpenTTD makes use of the original TTD artwork.

List of the required files:
sample.cat
trg1r.grf
trgcr.grf
trghr.grf
trgir.grf
trgtr.grf

(Alternatively you can use the TTD GRF files from the DOS version: TRG1.GRF,
TRGC.GRF, TRGH.GRF, TRGI.GRF, TRGT.GRF. A few minor graphical glitches with 
the DOS graphics remain. E.g. the autorail button in the rail toolbar doesn't 
look as nice as with the Windows graphics.)

If you want music you need to copy the gm/ folder from Windows TTD into your
OpenTTD folder, not your data folder.

You can change the data path (which contains savegames as well) in Makefile.config
by setting DATA_DIR_PREFIX and USE_HOMEDIR.


5.0) OpenTTD features:
---- -----------------

OpenTTD has a lot of features going beyond the original TTD emulation.
Unfortunately, there is currently no comprehensive list of features, but there is
a basic features list on the web, and some optional features can be
controlled through the Configure Patches dialog. We also implement some
features known from TTDPatch (http://www.ttdpatch.net/).

Several important non-standard controls:

* Use Ctrl to place presignals
* Ctrl-D toggles double mode in the Windows version
* Ingame console. More information at http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/OpenTTDDevBlackBook


6.0) Configuration File:
---- -------------------
The configuration file for OpenTTD (openttd.cfg) is in a simple Windows-like
.INI format. It's mostly undocumented. Almost all settings can be changed ingame by
using the 'Configure Patches' window.


7.0) Compiling:
---- ----------
Windows:
  You need Microsoft Visual Studio 6 or .NET. Open the project file
  and it should build automatically. In case you want to build with SDL support
  you need to add WITH_SDL to the project settings.
  PNG (WITH_PNG) and ZLIB (WITH_ZLIB) support is enabled by default. For these to
  work you need their development files. For best results, download the openttd-useful.zip
  file from SourceForge under the Files tab. Put the header files into your compiler's
  include/ directory and the library (.lib) files into the lib/ directory. For more help
  with VS6 see docs/Readme_Windows_MSVC6.0.txt.

  You can also build it using the Makefile with MSYS/MinGW or Cygwin/MinGW.
  Please read the Makefile for more information.

Unix:
  OpenTTD can be built with GNU "make". On non-GNU systems it's called "gmake".
  Note that you need SDL-devel 1.2.5 (or higher) to compile OpenTTD.
  (see also docs/Readme_Mandrake_Linux.txt)

MacOS:
  Use "make".

BeOS:
  Use "make".

FreeBSD:
  Use "gmake".

MorphOS:
  Use "make". Note that you need the MorphOS SDK and the
  powersdl.library SDK.

OS/2:
  Open Watcom C/C++ 1.3 or later is required to build the OS/2 version. See the
  docs/Readme_OS2.txt file for more information.


8.0) Translating:
---- -------------------
See http://www.openttd.org/translating.php for up-to-date information.

The use of the online Translator service, located at http://translator.openttd.org/, is
highly encouraged. For a username/password combo you should contact the development team,
either by mail, IRC or the forums. The system is straightforward to use, and if you have any
problems, read the online help located there.

If for some reason the website is down for a longer period of time, the information below
might be of help.

8.1) Guidelines:
---- -------------------
Here are some translation guidelines which you should follow closely.

    * Please contact the development team before begining the translation process!
      This avoids double work, as someone else may have already started translating to the same language.
    * Translators must use the charater set ISO 8859-15.
      Otherwise, some characters will not display correctly in the game.
    * Currently it is not possible to translate into character sets other than Latin. Also, changing
      the order of strings is unsupported. For instance, it is always '16 tonnes of coal' and cannot be
      'coal existing of 16 tonnes'

8.2) Translation:
---- -------------------
So, now that you've notified the development team about your intention to translate
(You did, right? Of course you did.) you can pick up english.txt (found in the SVN repository
under /lang) and translate.

You must change the first two lines of the file appropriately:

##name English-Name-Of-Language
##ownname Native-Name-Of-Language

Note: Do not alter the following parts of the file:

    * String identifiers (the first word on each line)
    * Parts of the strings which are in curly braces (such as {STRING})
    * Lines beginning with ## (such as ##id), other than the first two lines of the file

8.3) Previewing:
---- -------------------
In order to view the translation in the game, you need to compile your language file
with the strgen utility, which is now bundled with the game.

strgen is a command-line utility. It takes the language filename as parameter.
Example:

strgen lang/german.txt

This results in compiling german.txt and produces another file named german.lng.
Any missing strings are replaced with the English strings. Note that it looks for english.txt
in the lang subdirectory, which is where your language file should also be.

That's all! You should now be able to select the language in the game options.

9.0) Troubleshooting
---- ---------------

To see all startup options available to you, start OpenTTD with the "./openttd -h"
option. This might help you tweak some of the settings.

If the game is acting strange and you feel adventorous you can try the "-d [[<name>]=[<level>]"
flag, where the higher levels will give you more debugging output. The "name" variable can help
you to display only some type of debugging messages. This is mostly undocumented
so best is to look in the source code file debug.c for the various debugging types. For more
information look at http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Command_line.

The most frequent problem is missing data files. Don't forget to put all GRF files from TTD
into your data/ folder including sample.cat!

Another, less frequent problem is the game refusing to run when you don't have a
sound card. To solve this, force OpenTTD to run without sound/music by running it with
the command line option: "./openttd -s null -m null". This will disable both sound
and music.

Under Windows 98 and lower it is impossible to use a dedicated server; it will fail to
start. Perhaps this is for the better because those OS's are not known for their stability.

X.X) Credits:
---- --------
The OpenTTD team (in alphabetical order):
  Bjarni Corfitzen (Bjarni)      - Mac OS X port, coder
  Victor Fischer (Celestar)      - Programming everywhere you need him to
  Tamas Farag<61> (Darkvater)       - Lead programmer
  Kerekes Miham (MiHaMiX)        - Maintainer of translator service, and host of nightlies
  Owen Rudge (orudge)            - Contributor, forum host, master server host, OS/2 port
  Christoph Mallon (Tron)        - Programmer, code correctness police
  Patric Stout (TrueLight)       - Programmer, network guru, SVN-repository and website host

Retired Developers:
  Dominik Scherer (dominik81)    - Lead programmer, GUI expert (0.3.0 - 0.3.6)
  Ludvig Strigeus (ludde)        - OpenTTD author, main coder (0.1 - 0.3.3)
  Serge Paquet (vurlix)          - Assistant project manager, coder (0.1 - 0.3.3)

Thanks to:
  Josef Drexler - For his great work on TTDPatch.
  Marcin Grzegorczyk - For his TTDPatch work and documentation of TTD internals and graphics (signals and track foundations)
  Matthijs Kooijman (blathijs) - For his many patches, suggestions and major work on maprewrite
  Petr Baudis (pasky) - Many patches, newgrf support, etc.
  Stefan Mei<65>ner (sign_de) - For his work on the console
  Mike Ragsdale - OpenTTD installer
  Cian Duffy (MYOB) - BeOS port / manual writing
  Christian Rosentreter (tokaiz) - MorphOS / AmigaOS port
  Michael Blunck - For revolutionizing TTD with awesome graphics
  George - Canal graphics
  All Translators - For their support to make OpenTTD a truly international game
  Bug Reporters - Thanks for all bug reports
  Chris Sawyer - For an amazing game!