Development/Tutorials/Localization/Message Appearance

What Translators See

This page is a short summary that tries to show how translators see the translatable messages. The information that translators see about a given message also depends on where the message comes from.

(The idea is that I'll move this page to somewhere once it's at least somewhat useful.)

Messages coming from i18n() and friends

For these messages translators will only see the following:

• the source string (and plural form if i18np is used)
• the context parameter if i18nc is used
• the code comment beginning with "i18n:" if used
• list of file names and row numbers the messages appears in

For example this message:

QString msg = i18nc("%1 and %2 are file names", "Do you want to replace %1 with %2?",
                   oldFile, newFile)

Appears like this:

#: example.cpp:57
#, kde-format
msgctxt "%1 and %2 are file names"
msgid "Do you want to replace file %1 with file %2?"
msgstr ""

(Perhaps use a screenshot of Lokalize here?)

Messages in UI files

For these messages translators will see everything that they see for messages coming from i18n() and friends. They will additionally see the following:

• the type and name of the widget the message it appears in
• the name of the property the message is a value for

If the message appears in many places, the context information from all the places is shown.

For example:

(Mention that not all translators know how to infer context from class names of widgets.)

Messages in .kcfg files

(TODO)