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 have 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.

Examples:

#. i18n: ectx: property (displayFormat), widget (QDateEdit, dateEdit)
#: mainwindowview.ui:137
msgid "d/M/yyyy"
msgstr ""

#. i18n: ectx: property (toolTip), widget (KComboBox, maintypeBox)
#. i18n: ectx: property (whatsThis), widget (KComboBox, maintypeBox)
#: mainwindowview.ui:154 mainwindowview.ui:157
msgid "The main game of the theme"
msgstr ""

#. i18n: ectx: property (title), widget (QGroupBox, groupBox_2)
#: conf/dlgeditorbase.ui:19 conf/preferencesdialog.cpp:56
msgid "Editor"
msgstr ""

(Perhaps have some screenshots of Lokalize here?)

For example from "property (displayFormat), widget (QDateEdit, dateEdit)" it could be inferred that the translatin should use the specific format that QDate's toString() accepts. Some translators cannot infer this, though, so it is good to additionally use "(qtdt-format)" as context as said on page Development/Tutorials/Localization/i18n.

Messages in .kcfg files

All the things mentioned in the first section also apply here. Additionally the following context information is automatically added:

the tag the string is for
the name of the entry the tag is for
the name of the group the entry belongs to

Example:

#. i18n: ectx: label, entry (UseGL), group (View)
#: kstars.cpp:176 kstars.kcfg:726 kstarsinit.cpp:238 skymap.cpp:1150
#: skymap.cpp:1158 skymap.cpp:1166
msgid "Switch to OpenGL backend"
msgstr ""