I2 & Playmaker - Changing Key Names

Hi,
Managing Keys its always a pain, I2 Localization has tools to help you deal with that, but at the end, the major thing its to do proper planning from the beginning.

Unless your project its entirely dynamic. Most of the localizations are going to be handled not in PM but by adding a Localize component to a label and setting the term in that component.
If you need to change a term's name, there is a tool that allows merging/renaming terms
inter-illusion.com/assets/I2Localization...l/CombiningKeys.html
That tool parses every component in every scene and updates the term/terms to the new name.

1. Live with never changing a Key/Term

As you say, that's not acceptable, terms shouldn't be changed, but your game development should have a flow to handle this in case its really needed.

2. Create global string vars for each key in PM. Not practical.

There is a similar implementation for normal C# code.
inter-illusion.com/assets/I2Localization...riptsforsaverac.html

That creates variables pointing to the terms, that way even if the term changes, the variables are kept. However, that works for normal scripts, there is no implementation for PM.

3. Create a dedicated layer of abstraction between I2 and PM- Set up an array of the Keys and access them in PM by index and never change the order.

That could work, but I don't think you really need this. Keys are meant to be treated as Indices.
Originally I thought of having numbers instead of Keys (e.g. Term 32, instead of "MY_TERM_HELLO"), given that the Key is just that, a way to reference the translation in the Localization database.
Adding another index, its just adding a key that references the key that references the translation. Its another layer of abstraction, but doesn't solve the problem, eventually you will want to modify the new indices, and then you will have an index that reference another index that references a key that points to the translation.

In most games, you will only change terms using PM in a handful places, everywhere else, you will be using the normal Localize component.
So, my suggestion for now, its to enforce that translators don't modify the name of the key for those terms. And if you need to modify other terms, use the Rename tool.

Said that, for PM I should be able to extend the Rename tool to also search inside PM nodes and update the keys there. I will add that to my todo list and try having that as soon as possible.

Hope that helps,
Frank