source: trunk/reskit/reskit.txt@ 255

FM/2 Translation Toolkit

This Toolkit allows you to modify the strings and icons stored in FM3RES.STR
and FM3RES.DLL.  This allows you to translate FM/2 for other languages and
to replace FM/2's standard icons and bitmaps.

To use the Toolkit, create a work directory and unzip the reskit.zip to this
directory.  Be sure to preserve the directory structure in the zip file.  You
will also need a copy of FM3RES.DLL in the work directory.  Copy this file
from your FM/2 directory.

Modify the files in the Toolkit as described below and run the COMPILE
script to rebuild the selected files.

To rebuild FM3RES.DLL, you will need a copy of RC.EXE on your PATH and
appropriate OS/2 #include files.  RC and the #include files come with the
OS/2 developer's toolkit and various OS/2 compilers.  See the comments in
FM3STR.H for remarks about additions and insertions.

When making changes to FM3DLL.STR, FM3RES.RC or FM3RES.DLG, translate the
_text only_.  Do _not_ reorder, remove or create new lines in FM3DLL.STR.
Do not modify the odd-looking %%s, %%lu, etc. items in FM3DLL.STR. They are
used by the formatted print routines.

When replacing icons, make sure you provide an appropriate set of
resolutions.  When replacing bitmaps, make sure you to size the bitmap to fit
correctly in place of the original bitmap.

Do not alter any other files.  If you do not follow the above guidelines,
FM/2 may refuse to run correctly.

To get quick usage help, type:

  COMPILE

at the command line.

To rebuild just FM3RES.STR, type:

 compile /s

at the command line.

To rebuild both FM3RES.DLL and FM3RES.STR, type:

 compile /b

at a command line.

After rebuilding, shut down FM/2 and copy the new files to the FM/2
program directory and restart FM/2.


== Trouble Shooting ==

FM/2 versions 3.20i-6 and earlier stripped the DOS stub from FM3RES.DLL.
This will cause RC.EXE to fail with a 1013 error.  Current versions of FM/2
preserve the stub, so you should not see this error.

If you want to alter FM3RES.DLL for an older version of FM/2, you need to run
LXLITE.EXE on FM3RES.DLL to restore the DOS stub before running RC.EXE.  You
can get LXLITE.EXE from Hobbes:

 <http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=lxlite&pushbutton=Search>

Any relatively recent version of lxlite should work, but 1.3.3 was used to
verify this procedure.

At a command promt, run:

  lxlite X:\path\fm3res.dll /x
  lxlite X:\path\fm3resdll /c:minstub

This will decompress the DLL and restore the stub.

After recompiling the DLL, you can run

  lxlite X:\path\fm3res.dll /c:default

to recompress the DLL, if you wish.

Not all versions of RC.EXE are created equal.  Currently, the best version to
use is:

 12-18-97   6:01         868,000           0  rc.exe

which reports itself as:

 IBM RC (Resource Compiler) Version 5.00.002 Dec 18 1997

and which is available at:

  <ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/ps/products/warpzilla/os2tk40rc.zip>


$Id: reskit.txt 223 2005-06-18 04:16:59Z root $