RPGMTL

Small tool to create MTL patches for RPG Maker MV and MZ games.
For now, it's exclusively for JSON files of the data folder.

Requirements

Tested on Python 3.11.
See requirements.txt for a list of third-party modules.
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt, in a terminal/command prompt, to install or update them.

First time

Create a folder for the game you want to patch. It doesn't have to be in this game folder.
Copy and paste rpgmtl.py inside.
Run it.
It will ask you to select the location of the game executable (Usually, Game.exe).
It will create two folders: manual_edit where you can add files you manually edited (for examples javascript or image files) and untouched_files which is a backup of your game data and js folders.
patches.py should also have been created. More on it on a section below.
In the terminal, you can use the first option Generate strings.json by typing 0. You can then use the second option to attempt to translate them or manually edit it with your favorite text editor.
Once you're done, you can use the third option Create patch by typing 2. A new folder called release which will contain your patched files. You can copy them to your game folder and overwrite to test them.

Repeat step 8 if you update your translation.

strings.json

It's a table of all strings and their translation or the null value.
They are ordered by order of occurence in the game files and only the first occurence is saved.
To help with the context, you'll also see strings such as the following :
"============== Actors.json ==============" which indicates that the next strings were found in the file Actors.json.
"==== TALKING:394:Face:0:1:2:NPC_name ==============" which indicates the last speaker (Event command 101) in the event list.
Those special strings always have the value 0 and you shouldn't change it.

Backups are automatically created when using the tool.
It will also tell you if you made an error in the JSON format.

groups.json

For internal use and for the test server tool (see below).
You don't have to modify it.

manual_edit Folder

Simply put the other files that you modified yourself inside.
For example, if you want to modify js/plugins.js, make a new folder named js and copy the original plugins.js inside. Then edit it.
When you'll create the patch, it will automatically be copied to the release folder.

patches.py

Used for fine tuning. You can set python code to run for specific files.
The default file is always:

#@@@System.json
data["locale"] = "en_UK"

Where it sets the value of the locale of System.json to "en_UK". You can add how many as you want and they must be grouped by files:

#@@@System.json
data["locale"] = "en_UK"

#@@@Items.json
data[0]["description"] = "Super strong item, for real!"

Files are delimited using #@@@.
Multiple files can also be set for one patch using a semicolon ;.
For example: #@@@System.json;Items.json.
In a similar fashion, multiple patches can be set for one file:

#@@@System.json
data["locale"] = "en_UK"

#@@@System.json
data["gameTitle"] = "Cool game"

Patches are executed in order of occurence.

And, of course, the content in-between these lines must be valid python code.
There is no real limit. Just make sure to escape the quote with a backslash. Use \n for new lines.
Note: They will always run AFTER the patching of the strings.

Additionally if you need to mutate the data variable, you can do something like the following:

#@@@Myfile
global data_set
# do stuff
# ...
# end
data_set = data # set this variable

If data_set is detected to not be None after the execution, its content is set back inside data.
So you can use this type of line to do pretty much whatever you want.

Game update

If a game got updated and you want to update the string list, simply use the fourth option Game got updated and select your game folder again. It will recreate the untouched_files folder. You can then reuse the first option Generate strings.json. It will add the new strings and delete the ones not used anymore.
Make sure to not mix and matches different games by mistake.

Machine translation

The script uses the deep translator module for translations.
By default, the script is set and intended to be used with Google Translate, and it targets the english language.
You can change this behavior by changing those line:

from deep_translator import GoogleTranslator

TRANSLATOR = GoogleTranslator(source='auto', target='en')

And the translate_string function if you want to go further.
See the Github repository linked above for more informations on deep translator..

Test Server

Found in the the test_server folder are a few files to test the strings directly in game.
Do note that it's VERY experimental and has only be tested in a few RPG Maker MZ games.
To use:

Copy the content of test_server to the game folder.
Copy your strings.json and groups.json to the game folder.
Start a local web server. A way to do it is, with Python, is using the command python -m http.server. On Windows, you can double click start_server.bat.
Open any Chromium-type Browser and go to http://localhost:8000/server.html.

The strings will cycle one by one.
You can use CTRL to skip ahead.
You can also open the Dev tools (using F12), go to the Console tab and change the value of test_count to change the next line. Example, test_count = 0; will reset to the beginning.

MizaGBF / RPGMTL