(this topic is about general aspect of how to access the english interface as a non-english speaker, it is NOT about the german interface, i just use German examples as i am a native german speaker)
@Verena we discussed about Rhino can become more accessible for newbies @curtisw seems like you are the responsible person for commandline-Design
Background
writing from Switzerland, where people speak Italian, French, German and Rhaeto-Romanic … and most people also know English quite well.
Yesterday I supervised a lecture where one (german speaking) person was not very comfortable with the English interface, another person insisted on using the French Translation - while my lecture / course is prepared and documented based on the English Language setting.
@Helvetosaur Mitch - what do you think as a multi-language person also teaching in Switzerland ?
English-Interface for non-native speakers - Discussion and Ideas
To translate a CAD Programm with all this technical Terms is quite a challenge.
While Tangent (Tangente), Line (Linie), Endpoint (Endpunkt), Box (Quader/Box), and many more Terms are super easy to understand - Many of my students and customers struggle with more complex Commandline prompts like _revolve
“End of revolve axis (Press Enter to use CPlane z-axis direction”
let s collect and discuss Ideas !
temporary Translation
my Idea to address this issue: have some functionality to temporary translate the commandline. This might be done in a second (inactive?) commandline, in some kind of Help-Panel - or prefered in place:
if the option is set and an additional language is choosen:
Where/what we teach is maybe a bit different than your situation - we do not teach Rhino in English. We are teaching at the apprentice level, not HES or university, and despite having had several years of both English and another national language, our apprentices generally have a very poor grasp of anything other than their native dialect. So we teach the Swiss German speaking kids in German/Swiss German (the teacher is a native speaker) and the French-speaking kids in French. Separately. Rhino is in either German or in French respectively. I have visited many of our model shops who use Rhino and they all use it in their native language, not English.
Just as a side note, I also prefer using Rhino in my own native language… fortunately that happens to be English.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this issue as well. That’s why I usually advise most users—myself included—to keep the interface in English while setting the Help Panel to their native language (Korean in my case).
In Rhino 8, this can be achieved by downloading the offline help package and renaming the folder, but it would be so much better if Rhino allowed us to set the Help Panel language independently in the settings. The Rhino Help is an incredibly useful resource, even though many users overlook it.
P.S. Since Grasshopper doesn’t offer help documentation in other languages, I actually started developing a custom panel that displays ‘Korean - Original Language - Example - Input/Output’. However, with GH2 on the horizon, I’ve put the project on hold for now and am just using it internally…
Thank you, @Tom_P, for bringing this up, and everyone else for your input. I’ve created this YouTrack issue to track it: RH-98248 “Allow Help language to be changed after install, independently of the installed UI language”.
Strange world, I live in Sweden but i would never want my cad in swedish mainly for communication purposes and swedish translation is just horrible.
Best case for any user is to keep it in english its universal, I would imagine it just brings more burden to the workflow having to translate and in some cases translations doesn’t translate correctly judging from what ive seen in this forum.
I would jokingly say get better students but thats just cruel…
cest la vie i guess, good luck finding a solution.
Dear Verena - looks like the youtrack RH-98248 is not public.
The main driving factor of my initial post is, to support people to learn the english interface by temporary translation of command-prompts, options, maybe help.
This temporary translation has to be “in place”.
(and yes @Charles - this will be a “Hilfsmittel” as your four-wheeled walker)
The aim would be that those users later - when getting advanced - keep it in english@CADARTZ
And i can totally accept people that want a local translation (Korean or Swedish or German, …) - I am a big fan of keeping the UI in english.
Using an english interface, but a german help file will make it hard for many commands to map options-names / and choices.
So maybe future help might need to have translated and english option (and Macro) naming as headings?
sample sweep2
… might look like this (with english name still in brackets)
Nahtoptionen anpassen (Nur geschlossene Kurven)(Adjust seam options (Closed curves only)) Ursprünglich(Natural)
Verschiebt die Nahtpunkte so wie sie vor Ausführen des Befehls ausgerichtet waren.
let s see what is possible / what gets developed - looking forward to discuss the prototypes. kind regards - tom
I agree to some extent. It’s always tricky when help articles reference translated command names that don’t match the English interface.
Rhino’s help pages are already very well-linked, but implementing both English and translated option/macro names in headings would be a huge undertaking compared to just switching the display language.
Plus, Rhino Help is already incredibly useful as it is. Just being able to switch the Help panel language (like RH-98248) would already be a huge win for our region.
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