freesynd-cht

name	freesynd-cht
description	Build, run, package, or extend 極道梟雄 — the Traditional Chinese localization of Syndicate (1993) on the open-source FreeSynd engine. Use when applying this repo's translations to a legally-owned copy of Syndicate, reproducing the Chinese build, packaging it (AppImage / Windows), or working on the CJK font / menu-layout / Windows-path code.

極道梟雄 — FreeSynd Traditional Chinese

This repo (freesynd-cht) is an IP-clean translation record, not the game. It ships only the translations + GPL engine patches. The original English (EA copyright) is never stored — mission briefings are keyed by the FNV-1a-64 hash of the player's own data, reconstructed locally.

Reproduce the Chinese build

Prereq: a legally-owned copy of Syndicate 1993 → extract its .DAT files into a synd-data/ folder. Engine is GPLv3 FreeSynd.

1. Clone + checkout the patch baseline

   git clone https://github.com/bni/freesynd.git && cd freesynd && git checkout fa27909
   

2. Apply patches — 01 (core CHT) is required; then pick one display variant:

   git apply ../freesynd-cht/patches/01-freesynd-chinese-tc.patch
   git apply ../freesynd-cht/patches/02-hd-640x480-crisp.patch     # 640×480 sharp (recommended)
   #   or
   git apply ../freesynd-cht/patches/03-hd-1024x768-smooth.patch   # 1024×768 bilinear
   

3. Copy fonts + UI strings

   cp ../freesynd-cht/fonts/*.fnt        data/fonts/
   cp ../freesynd-cht/data/lang/chinese-tw.lng data/lang/
   

4. Apply briefing translations from YOUR data (reconstructs data/lang/chinese-tw/missNN.txt; the repo holds only hashes + zh, no EA prose):

   python3 ../freesynd-cht/tools/apply_public.py <your-synd-data-dir>
   

5. Build & run — set language = 5 in user.conf for Traditional Chinese. Ubuntu 22.04 host g++ 11 can't build (<format>); use the docker image. See patches/README.md for full steps.

Conventions & gotchas (when extending the localization)

• The font is charset-driven — regenerate it AFTER translating. tools/build_charset.py collects every used char into tools/charset.txt; tools/ttf2fnt.py renders chinese-{12,16}.fnt from a host TTF. Use Noto Sans CJK TC (or another quality TTF); Cubic 11 is banned. The .fnt only covers chars in the charset — a translation pass that introduces new chars renders them blank until you regenerate. (ttf2fnt.py packs each glyph row with the leftmost pixel at bit size-1; the loader must decode with the same alignment — keep encoder/decoder in sync.)
• The x2-default-true drawText trap. MenuFont::drawText(x, y, text, bool lighted, bool x2 = true) — a 4-arg call sets lighted, and x2 defaults to true, so a 12px CJK SIZE_1 glyph renders at 24px and overlaps tight info panels. Fix: pass x2=false explicitly as the 5th arg (see the equip/research weapon-info panels). For MenuText statics, call setDoubleSize(false). The ListBox already draws at single size — match it.
• HD layout maps every legacy Y with Menu::mapY(y) = y * kScreenHeight / 400. The 4:3 variants raise kScreenHeight 400→480; widget factories (addOption/addStatic/…) apply mapY, but any element drawn at a raw legacy coordinate (e.g. the briefing minimap kMiniMapScreenPos, custom handleRender draws) sits ~1.2× too high/wrong. Map both its render position and its hit-test.
• Windows + CJK paths crash std::filesystem. A path containing CJK (e.g. 極道梟雄) throws "Cannot convert character sequence" under the C locale → the game dies right after the window opens. Two fixes (in utils/src/file.cpp + game/freesynd.cpp): build exeFolder() from the wide GetModuleFileNameW as an fs::path; and in main() install a UTF-8 codecvt globally — std::locale::global(std::locale(std::locale(), new std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<wchar_t>)) (wrap in #pragma GCC diagnostic ignored "-Wdeprecated-declarations" for -Werror). Also read user.conf
  • saves from the exe folder, not %USERPROFILE%. Verify by running the bare exe from a path that contains CJK — window must open and a save/ folder must be created there.

Packaging (author's local pipeline — not in this repo)

• AppImage: built in an Ubuntu-22.04 freesynd-dist docker image (glibc 2.34 → portable), bundling the player's data. Windows: mingw-w64 freesynd-win image; the zip ships 極道梟雄.sh / 極道梟雄.bat launchers. Both bundle EA data, so they are gitignored and never pushed.
• macOS: .github/workflows/macos.yml builds the engine-only 極道梟雄.app on a real macos-14 runner (IP-clean — no EA data), per arch. arm64 is native; x86_64 is cross-built on the same Apple-Silicon runner via Rosetta + Intel Homebrew (arch -x86_64 /usr/local/bin/brew install sdl2 …, -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64 -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/usr/local) because free Intel macos-13 runners are deprecated and queue for ~an hour. Build notes: SDL is system (Homebrew) but libpng/cli11/crcpp/utfcpp come from conan (-DCMAKE_PROJECT_TOP_LEVEL_INCLUDES= cmake/conan_provider.cmake); set -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=13.4 for std::format; check out the engine by full 40-char SHA; mkdir -p data/fonts before copying the CHT fonts; dylibbundler self-contains the bundle. Then locally inject EA data + briefings into Contents/Resources/data/ and …/lang/chinese-tw/, and ship a 啟用.command that ad-hoc-signs on the user's Mac (xattr -cr + codesign --force --deep -s -) — adding files invalidates the signature and Apple Silicon won't launch an unsigned/invalid bundle.

Hard IP rule

Never commit or push EA content: synd-data, original English prose, or any AppImage/zip that bundles them. The public repo stores only translations + FNV-1a-64 hashes. .gitignore excludes /synd-data, /dist/, *.AppImage, *.zip.