ɱéťàł

"English, but metal"

Metal is a tool that converts English text into a legible, Zalgo-like character swap for the purposes of testing localisation and UTF-8 character support in game engines, websites and other tools.

By rewriting basic ASCII characters into recognisable, accented alternatives, an English-reading programmer can immediately see where and how text is breaking in a rendering pipeline.

It should be clear, however, that Metal is not a magic bullet for all text rendering or all language support, merely an early testing tool.

Before

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'

After

Åľįċė ŵąś ьęɠĩńɴïŋğ ŧő ĝəʈ vėɼŷ ţîʁèď ŏf śĩŧţɨňĝ ʙŷ ĥéʁ ŝɨśŧɘŕ ɵñ ťħĕ ʙąñʞ, àɴɗ ôf ĥãvĭňğ ɲŏťħïɲɠ ťŏ ɗɵ: öɲćě óʁ ţŵĩćę şħê ɧãɗ pɘêpɘɗ ĭʼnťó ţɦě ьõõķ ɧɘŕ šíŝʈěʁ ŵáš řēáďĭňɠ, ʙûŧ íţ ĥăɗ ʼnô pīċʈūɾęš öŕ ċöɲvéʁśąťĭŏņŝ ìň ɨţ, 'áŋđ ŵħąť ɨš ʈĥĕ ūśė ɵf å ьôök,' ţĥőüğɦť Åľïçė 'ŵīţħòuʈ pĩčťūřėś òř čōʼnvěŗśăŧɨɵɲ?'

Metal was inspired by a segment on internationalisation in this GDC talk about Firewatch, given by William Armstrong and Patrick Ewing.

Standalone Usage

$ cat input.txt | metal > output.txt

or —

$ metal "some input string"

Standalone Compilation

$ go build -o metal<.exe> exec/main.go

The character table can also be modified or rebuilt from the source.txt file in util. Run —

$ go generate

— to rebuild it.

Library Usage

import "github.com/qxoko/metal"

some_output := metal.Anodize(some_input)