This guide provides some ground rules to write user-facing texts for 0 A.D.

== Capitalization

Use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Title_case title case] for:
- Button captions
- Entity names (including generic unit and structure names)
- Key names
- Proper names

Never use full capitalization.

For example:

||=Good                        =||=Bad                         =||
||Click the Citizen Soldier icon||Click the CITIZEN SOLDIER icon||
||Hold shift and click          ||Hold Shift and click          ||


== Cursor vs Mouse

Mind the difference between the cursor (virtual) and the mouse (physical).


== English Dialect

Use US English.

For example:

||=Good=||=Bad =||
||Color ||Colour||


== Terminology

In texts that the user needs to understands, such as menu entries, help
tooltips, and similar, you must be consistent with the vocabulary that you use.

An object should always be referred to using the same word everywhere in the
game, and an action should always be referred to using the same verb.

For example, if there is a unit type called ‘female citizen’, always refer to it
as such, do not also use alternative forms such as ‘females’, ‘women’, and so
on. Even in the same paragraph or sentence, you should use the same term.

For specific words that you should use or avoid in 0 A.D. gameplay texts, see the tables below:

=== Actions

||=Good             =||=Bad         =||
||Collect (treasures)||              ||
||Gather (resources) ||Collect       ||
||Train (units)      ||Produce, build||

=== GUI

||=Good=||=Bad   =||
||Icon  ||Portrait||

=== Stats

||=Good=||=Bad        =||
||Health||Hitpoints, HP||

=== Structures

||=Good      =||=Bad                                   =||
||Civic Center||Civic Centre, Civil Center, Civil Centre||

=== Units

||=Good                                       =||=Bad                       =||
||Cavalry Citizen Soldier                      ||                            ||
||Citizen (cavalry or infantry, female or male)||Worker                      ||
||Citizen Soldier (cavalry or infantry)        ||                            ||
||Female Citizen                               ||Female, Female Worker, Woman||
||Infantry Citizen Soldier                     ||                            ||


== Unicode

[Atlas_Manual|Atlas] [https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/4936|does not support Unicode], so English strings should not contain Unicode characters for the time being.

But you should avoid using combinations of ASCII characters to try and reproduce Unicode characters.

The following table shows Unicode characters and what you should use instead of them:

||=Unicode=||=Good   =||=Bad=||
||…        ||and so on||...  ||