Installation

Dragoman is a C++ editor plugin for Unreal Engine 5.0 to 5.8 (Win64, Mac and Linux editor). It depends on Unreal’s Data Validation plugin, which is enabled automatically when you enable Dragoman. Unreal’s Localization Dashboard is part of the editor and needs no plugin.

Install from Fab

1. Open ta Dragoman on Fab, choose the license that applies to you (Personal or Professional) and add it to your library.

2. In the Epic Games Launcher, open Fab Library, find ta Dragoman and click Install to Engine for each engine version you use (5.0 to 5.8).

3. Open your project, go to Edit > Plugins, search for Dragoman and enable ta Dragoman. Restart the editor when prompted.

4. Open Tools > ta Dragoman (in the tridiART section of the Tools menu).

Installed this way, the plugin lives in the engine and is available to every project. To keep it with one project (for example so the whole team gets it from source control, or to run it on a build machine), install it manually instead.

Install manually

1. Close the Unreal Editor.

2. Copy the TADragoman folder into your project’s Plugins folder. Create the Plugins folder next to your .uproject file if it doesn’t exist yet. The result should look like this:

   MyGame/
     MyGame.uproject
     Plugins/
       TADragoman/
         TADragoman.uplugin
         Source/
         Resources/

3. Open the project. If the plugin hasn’t been compiled for your engine version yet, see Build from source below.

4. Open Edit > Plugins, search for Dragoman and make sure ta Dragoman is enabled. If you had to enable it, restart the editor when prompted.

5. Open Tools > ta Dragoman (in the tridiART section of the Tools menu).

Build from source

The plugin ships with its full C++ source code. If the copy you installed doesn’t contain compiled binaries for your engine version, the plugin has to be built:

• C++ projects: build the project in your IDE (for example Visual Studio 2022 on Windows), or let the editor rebuild the missing modules when it asks on startup.

• Blueprint-only projects: the editor can’t compile plugin code for you. Either add a C++ class to the project (which turns it into a C++ project) and build it, or build the plugin once with Unreal Automation Tool and copy the packaged result into your Plugins folder:

  "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.6\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat" BuildPlugin -Plugin="C:\Path\TADragoman\TADragoman.uplugin" -Package="C:\Build\TADragoman" -TargetPlatforms=Win64

  Use the RunUAT script of the engine version you want to build for.

Set up a localization target

Dragoman works on a localization target of Unreal’s own pipeline. If your project already has one, skip to Your first scan.

1. Open Tools > Localization Dashboard. New projects have a target called Game.

2. In Gather Text, turn on Gather from Text Files and add Source to its search directories if your C++ code has texts, and turn on Gather from Packages with the content folders to gather from, usually Content/*.

3. In Cultures, set the native language (the language you write the texts in) and add the languages you translate to.

Dragoman checks the target called Game by default; pick another one in the Target menu of the panel’s header (it is the Target Name setting in Project Settings > Plugins > ta Dragoman). No target yet? Repair gather setup… (in that menu and in Tools) creates one. See Repair gather setup.

Engine.manifest

Some launcher builds (seen in 5.6) ship without Engine.manifest and Editor.manifest, and the default Game target depends on both, so Gather fails. Dragoman reports this as Engine manifest missing. Repair gather setup removes the dependency; you can also remove it in the Localization Dashboard (target > Target Dependencies) or copy the manifests from another install.

Your first scan

1. Open Tools > ta Dragoman and click Scan. Dragoman reads the target’s texts and translations, and checks the Blueprints, widgets and tables under /Game for hardcoded text.

2. If the target has never been gathered, the panel says so. Click Gather: Unreal collects the texts in its own process, in a window with the progress and the log. When the setup would make Gather fail, Dragoman says why and Repair gather setup fixes it.

3. Each language now has a card with its coverage. Click a language. The Texts page opens on To do: the missing, changed and machine-translated texts.

4. Select a text to see its source, where it is used and its translation. Type or change the translation and click Save.

5. Click Compile, then pick the language in Editor Preferences > Region & Language > Preview Game Language to see it in the editor.

From here you can:

• Read the Editor panel guide for every part of the panel.
• Send work to translators and import it back: see Translators.
• Build a pseudo language to find cut-off and hardcoded text before translators start.
• Add the fonts your UI uses to Fonts To Check, and terms to the glossary.
• Run the checks in your build pipeline: see Command line & CI.

Tip

Settings are saved to Config/DefaultEditor.ini, and the glossary, notes and translation memory to Localization/Dragoman. Commit both so the whole team works with the same rules and data.

Updating and removing

To update, close the editor and replace the TADragoman folder with the new version. Your settings live in the project’s Config/DefaultEditor.ini and your data in Localization/Dragoman, not in the plugin folder, so they are kept.

To remove the plugin, disable it in Edit > Plugins or delete the TADragoman folder while the editor is closed. Dragoman doesn’t add any assets to your project. Your translations are in the target’s standard .manifest, .archive and .locres files, so the Localization Dashboard and your packaged game keep working without it. You can delete Localization/Dragoman and Saved/Dragoman if you no longer need them, and the [/Script/TADragoman.TADragomanSettings] section of Config/DefaultEditor.ini if you changed the settings.