Difference between revisions of "Typography Style Guide"
Simons Mith (talk | contribs) (Draft typography style guide) |
Simons Mith (talk | contribs) m (few last typos missing line breaks etc.) |
||
| Line 161: | Line 161: | ||
Darken Volk, the necromancer in Descent into Darkness, uses a lot of pauses in his conversation as he searches for just the right word: | Darken Volk, the necromancer in Descent into Darkness, uses a lot of pauses in his conversation as he searches for just the right word: | ||
| − | "The northlands have been my... home... for many years," (trailing space ellipsis) | + | "The northlands have been my... home... for many years," |
| + | (trailing space ellipsis) | ||
If a non-speaking character needs a moment in the spotlight, you can use an ellipsis for a wordless pause. Use sparingly: | If a non-speaking character needs a moment in the spotlight, you can use an ellipsis for a wordless pause. Use sparingly: | ||
| − | "..." (trailing space ellipsis) | + | "..." |
| + | (trailing space ellipsis) | ||
===Dashes in Speech=== | ===Dashes in Speech=== | ||
| Line 178: | Line 180: | ||
(two changes in who he's talking to, so two spaced em dashes) | (two changes in who he's talking to, so two spaced em dashes) | ||
| − | "Delfador, old friend— ''Down, | + | "Delfador, old friend— ''Down, Fyrax!'' — Don't worry, he's harmless— Now, where was I?" |
(trailing space, spaced and trailing space em dashes U+2014) | (trailing space, spaced and trailing space em dashes U+2014) | ||
(a combination of two interruptions and two changes in who is being addressed) | (a combination of two interruptions and two changes in who is being addressed) | ||
| − | "—What was that?!" (leading space em dash U+2014) | + | "—What was that?!" |
| + | (leading space em dash U+2014) | ||
(abrupt) | (abrupt) | ||
Theoretically, a short, sharp, but significant wordless pause could be marked with an em dash. However, the Wesnoth user interface is too sluggish to represent this properly, because you have to click or press keys to step through dialogue. For this reason, we advise against using it. | Theoretically, a short, sharp, but significant wordless pause could be marked with an em dash. However, the Wesnoth user interface is too sluggish to represent this properly, because you have to click or press keys to step through dialogue. For this reason, we advise against using it. | ||
| − | "—" (spaced em dash U+2014) | + | "—" |
| + | (spaced em dash U+2014) | ||
==Emphasis in Speech== | ==Emphasis in Speech== | ||
| Line 195: | Line 199: | ||
* For specialised game jargon terms, which should never be spoken in-character, use <b>'''bold tags'''</b>. | * For specialised game jargon terms, which should never be spoken in-character, use <b>'''bold tags'''</b>. | ||
| − | * For emphatic speech by characters, and in-character use of jargon, (for example, if a human wizard used a word in the Drakish language, use <i> | + | * For emphatic speech by characters, and in-character use of jargon, (for example, if a human wizard used a word in the Drakish language), use <i>''italic tags''</i>. |
* For shouting, the continued use of CAPITAL LETTERS is acceptable. It is now a reasonably well established practice. Nevertheless, use it as sparingly as possible, as it becomes irritating when overused. | * For shouting, the continued use of CAPITAL LETTERS is acceptable. It is now a reasonably well established practice. Nevertheless, use it as sparingly as possible, as it becomes irritating when overused. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Apostrophes== | ||
| + | |||
| + | Apostrophes are easy; just use a right single quote for a curly apostrophe; it's the same character in Unicode (’ U+2019 | ||
==Quotes in Speech== | ==Quotes in Speech== | ||
| − | The convention for highlighting game terms in dialogue has yet to be agreed. "This spear does 8–4 | + | The convention for highlighting game terms in dialogue has yet to be agreed. "This spear does 8–4 ‘arcane’ damage" does not look very good, even with sexed quotes. My suggestion is to mark specialised game terms in bold, now that simple HTML tags can be included in game dialogues. I believe that works OK now. |
| − | "This spear inflicts 8–4 <b>arcane</b> damage." | + | "This spear inflicts 8–4 <b>'''arcane'''</b> damage." |
| − | "Press <b>u</b> to undo the previous move." | + | "Press <b>'''u'''</b> to undo the previous move." |
Characters referring to things thay have heard will usually use sexed single quotes: | Characters referring to things thay have heard will usually use sexed single quotes: | ||
| − | |||
| − | "Your majesty, I will now sing ‘The Lay of Asheviere’" | + | "Who is this ‘Mal-Ravanal’ fellow?" |
| + | |||
| + | "Your majesty, I will now sing ‘The Lay of Asheviere’" | ||
When a character is reporting someone else's exact words, this is a rare occasion when double quotes would be used: | When a character is reporting someone else's exact words, this is a rare occasion when double quotes would be used: | ||
| − | "Lord Aryad said, “If more trouble follows them here we should let them fight it out, then we should ‘deal’ with the survivors, and make a compromise with the Dwarves.”" | + | |
| + | "Lord Aryad said, “If more trouble follows them here we should let them fight it out, | ||
| + | then we should ‘deal’ with the survivors, and make a compromise with the Dwarves.”" | ||
Revision as of 22:45, 10 August 2010
Contents
Typography Style Guide
This is a draft style guide intended as a first-pass suggestion for how character dialogue within campaigns should be marked up. For dialogue within the Wesnoth game user interface, see the user interface style guide (still to be written). For C coding guidelines, see the coding style guide. For WML coding, see the WML style guide.
References
- http://www.alistapart.com/articles/emen/ The Trouble with Em and En (and Other Shady Characters)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
Character Usage Summary
Dashes
en dash: – U+2013 (8211) em dash: — U+2014 (8212) horizontal bar: ― U+2015 (8213) AKA quotation dash minus sign: − U+2212 (8722)
Quotes and Apostrophes
left single quote: ‘ U+2018 (8216) right single quote: ’ U+2019 (8217) same character as curly apostrophe left double quote: “ U+201C (8220) right double quote: ” U+201D (8221) curly apostrophe: ’ U+2019 (8217) same character as right single quote
Other Characters (for reference)
ellipsis: … U+2026 (8230) not used at present, use three full stops
hyphen: ‐ U+2010 (8208) actual hyphen character, not used at present
hyphen-minus is OK in the standard Wesnoth font
Characters being removed from within US-English dialogs
hyphen-minus - replace with U+2013, U+2014, U+2015, U+2212 as appropriate straight apostrophe ' same character as single quote, replace with U+2019 unsexed single quote ' same character as straight apostrophe, replace with U+2019 backquote ` shouldn't be present anywhere, replace with U+2018 unsexed double quote " replace with U+201C, U+201D as appropriate
Spacing Definitions
- 'Unspaced' means no spaces before or after
- 'Spaced' means spaces before and after
- 'Leading space' means a space before, no space after
- 'Trailing space' means a space after, but no space before
If the space is the first character after an open quotation, or the last character before a close quotation, it should be omitted. This means 'unspaced' elements will be unaltered, 'spaced' elements will become either leading- or trailing-spaced elements, and leading- or trailing-spaced elements may be unaltered, or may become unspaced.
Dashes
Em Dash
"And now— An unexpected interruption!" (trailing space em dash U+2014)
"—What was that?!" (leading space em dash U+2014) (abrupt start to a sentence)
"commands great respect — especially among soldiers" (spaced em dash U+2014)
"Somewhere in this sentence—no need to guess where—is a parenthetical thought." (paired unspaced em dashes U+2014)
In character dialogue you can use parentheses instead of paired spaced em dashes, but in speech the dashes are slightly more preferable.
En Dash
"The trident is 14–2" (unspaced en dash U+2013) (weapon attack statistics)
Things like weapon attack statistics and other game jargon should not be used in any dialogue spoken by a character.
high-priority–high-pressure tasks (unspaced en dash U+2013) (hyphenating compound words - in this case tasks which are both high-priority and high-pressure)
"S–gn–d, D–lf–do–" (unspaced en dash U+2013) (marking missing letters in a fragment of text)
These usages are all very rare in scenario dialogue.
Horizontal Bar
text=_"Gee, look at all them Injuns!" source=_"― General Custer, 1876" (trailing space horizontal bar U+2015)
This is a sample quotation from tips.cfg; there are no instances of this usage in scenario dialogue at present.
Minus Sign
"−25%" (outside of equations use leading space minus sign U+2212) (sample from english.cfg; extremely rare in scenario dialog)
In speech, the word 'minus' should be written out in full; only game-specific scenario-related sentences should use the minus symbol inside scenario dialogue text.
Hyphen Minus
"Assemble a war-party" (unspaced hyphen-minus) (ordinary hyphen minus from the keyboard)
Note that there are no plans at present to use the genuine unicode hyphen ‐ U+2010
Ellipses
There is a Unicode ellipsis symbol, … U+2026, but at present we are using three full stops because in the standard Wesnoth font it looks basically the same. For our purposes, the non-speech uses of ellipsis - typically for quoting extracts of text, are very unlikely to be relevant. Please see references 1 and 4 for more details if you need information on this area. Normally an ellipsis should be spaced to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows. For speech in the Wesnoth game, a trailing space is usually more appropriate. Examples:
alpha ... beta gamma... delta epsilon..., eta theta, ... iota kappa...? lambda...!
Note that you only have four dots (ellipsis plus full stop) when you are quoting a partial extract from some text. In speech, the ellipsis replaces the full stop, so four dots will always be incorrect. Similarly, there is no such thing as a five-dot (or more) ellipsis, so any use of any more than three dots will always be wrong. Chinese and Japanese can use six- and variable numbers of dots respectively, but that doesn't mean we can in US-English.
The Difference Between Ellipses and Dashes in Speech
In speech, an ellipsis with a trailing space represents an indefinite or variable pause, or a character's words fading away to nothing, and an unspaced ellipsis represents an indefinite or variable pause in mid-word. An em dash represents an intentional pause, or an abrupt cut-off, possibly in mid-word. So that's the basic difference for Wesnoth's purposes; abrupt, use a dash, fading, use ellipsis. Examples:
Ellipses in Speech
If you start a character's speech with an ellipsis, it needs a trailing space:
"... Haldric?" (trailing space ellipsis) (tentative inquiry)
"And that reason would be...?" (unspaced ellipsis) (leading question)
If a character is dying, their speech might fade away as follows:
"Urgh! I go on to the Sunlit Lands..." (trailing space ellipsis)
For a character struggling to speak, you would normally use trailing space ellipses:
"Urgh! I go... on... to... the... Sunlit... Lands..."
You can fade away or pause in mid-word if you want, but generally only in longer words. Again, use only sparingly:
"Anti...disestab...lish...ment...arian..." (unspaced ellipsis)
Mixing these makes a character's speech appear even more irregular, but may look untidy or incorrect even when it's intentional. Use sparingly:
"Urgh! I go on... to... the... Sun...lit... Lands..."
Darken Volk, the necromancer in Descent into Darkness, uses a lot of pauses in his conversation as he searches for just the right word:
"The northlands have been my... home... for many years," (trailing space ellipsis)
If a non-speaking character needs a moment in the spotlight, you can use an ellipsis for a wordless pause. Use sparingly:
"..." (trailing space ellipsis)
Dashes in Speech
Dashes are used for abrupt or intentional interruptions, including when a character 'interrupts himself' by making an aside or changing who he is talking to in mid-sentence.
"You can't kill me! I am invinc—" (trailing space em dash U+2014)
"Delfador, my friend — Li'sar, the book, if you please — would you mind looking at this strange old tome we found?" (spaced em dash U+2014) (two changes in who he's talking to, so two spaced em dashes)
"Delfador, old friend— Down, Fyrax! — Don't worry, he's harmless— Now, where was I?" (trailing space, spaced and trailing space em dashes U+2014) (a combination of two interruptions and two changes in who is being addressed)
"—What was that?!" (leading space em dash U+2014) (abrupt)
Theoretically, a short, sharp, but significant wordless pause could be marked with an em dash. However, the Wesnoth user interface is too sluggish to represent this properly, because you have to click or press keys to step through dialogue. For this reason, we advise against using it.
"—" (spaced em dash U+2014)
Emphasis in Speech
We can now use bold and italic HTML-style markup inside WML tags. I recommend adopting this as promptly as possible.
- For specialised game jargon terms, which should never be spoken in-character, use <b>bold tags</b>.
- For emphatic speech by characters, and in-character use of jargon, (for example, if a human wizard used a word in the Drakish language), use <i>italic tags</i>.
- For shouting, the continued use of CAPITAL LETTERS is acceptable. It is now a reasonably well established practice. Nevertheless, use it as sparingly as possible, as it becomes irritating when overused.
Apostrophes
Apostrophes are easy; just use a right single quote for a curly apostrophe; it's the same character in Unicode (’ U+2019
Quotes in Speech
The convention for highlighting game terms in dialogue has yet to be agreed. "This spear does 8–4 ‘arcane’ damage" does not look very good, even with sexed quotes. My suggestion is to mark specialised game terms in bold, now that simple HTML tags can be included in game dialogues. I believe that works OK now.
"This spear inflicts 8–4 <b>arcane</b> damage." "Press <b>u</b> to undo the previous move."
Characters referring to things thay have heard will usually use sexed single quotes:
"Who is this ‘Mal-Ravanal’ fellow?"
"Your majesty, I will now sing ‘The Lay of Asheviere’"
When a character is reporting someone else's exact words, this is a rare occasion when double quotes would be used:
"Lord Aryad said, “If more trouble follows them here we should let them fight it out, then we should ‘deal’ with the survivors, and make a compromise with the Dwarves.”"