Using Gtranslator

Gtranslator is a full featureed graphical environment that makes it possible to translate po files painlessly. This section describes basic usage of Gtranslator.

Basic usage

Starting Gtranslator opens the Main window, shown in Figure 1. -->

Figure 1. Gtranslator Main Window

The Main window is divided into three main area:

Configuring at startup

Gtranslator's settings can be reached by clicking on the Settings->Preferences… menuitem.

Loading a po file

To load a po file, use the File->Open... menuitem. Clicking on Open... will bring up the gtranslator -- open po file dialog box. Browse through your computer's filesystem, choose the po file you whish to open and click OK.

Gtranslator offers you the possibility to open po files using the Gnome-VFS subsystem. This means that you may use URIs to access files on a remote system. Currently supported URIs are:

  • the file:// URI, as in
    file://localhost/path_to_file

  • the http:// URI as in
    http://www.gtranslator.org/gtranslator/gtranslator.pot

  • the ftp:// URI as in
    ftp://ftp.somewhere.org/pub/tr.po

Opening comressed po files: Gtranslator can open compressed po files. Click on the Open icon. This brings up the Open po file dialog box. Choose a compressed po file (can be identified by its .gz extension). Click on OK. If bzip2 is installed on your system, you may open bzip2 compressed files.

Editing a po file

Basics on panes, where to click, message status, basic navigation

Tip on on using the tree view.

Saving a po file

How to save, save as comressed?

Tip on turning fuzzy warnings on/off

Advanced features

Here come the advanced features, autotranslate, regexp search, upadte...

Autotranslate

Autotranslate is a nice feature.

Update

Update from source with xml-i18n-tool

Regexp search

Not implemented yet

Toolbar

The toolbar (shown in Figure 2) provides access to several commonly used routines.

Figure 2. Gtranslator Toolbar

File management toolbar

The file management toolbar lets you access often used file management funcions quickly.

Open

Brings up the Open file dialog dialog.

Save

Saves the po file.

Save as

Saves the po file under a different name.

Compile

Compiles the po file using msgfmt.

Update

Updates the po file from the sources using the xml-i18n-update from the xml-i18n-tools package.

Header

Brings up the Header dialog box with a form that lets you fill in the fields of the po files header.

Undo

Undoes your last action.

Options

Opens the Preferences window.

Exit

Exits the application.

Navigation toolbar

The navigation toolbar allows you to navigate among messages. It also lets you seach for strings or seach and replace strings in the msgstr field.

First

Jumps to the first message. dialog.

Back

Jumps to the previous message.

Next

Jumps to the next message.

Last

Jumps to the last message.

Missing

Jumps to the next untranslated message.

Fuzzy

Jumps to the next fuzzy message.

Go to

Jumps to the specified message number.

Find

Opens the Find dialog box. This dialog lets you search for strings in the po file.

Replace

Opens the Replace dialog box. This dialog lets you enter a string to search for and a string to replace it with.

Query

Opens the Query gettext domain dialog box. This dialog alows you to choose a gettext domain and look up translations.

Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:

File

This menu contains:

  • Compile (Alt-C) — This compiles the current po file.

  • Update (F5) — This updates your po file from the sources.

  • Autotranslate (F10) — This translates you po file automagically, using the learn buffers and the gettext domain available.

  • Open (F3) — This opens a po file.

  • Open from URI (F?) — This opens a po file via the FTP or the HTTP protocol.

  • Save (Ctrl-S) — This saves your file.

  • Save as... (Ctrl-Shift-S) — This saves your po file under a different name.

  • Restore — This restores your po file to the last saved state.

  • Close (Ctrl-W) — This closes your file.

  • Recent files — This shows a list of your recently opened po files.

  • Export to UTF-8 (Ctrl-E) — This exports your po file to UTF-8 encoding.

  • Import from UTF-8 (Ctrl-I) — This imports a UTF-8 encoded file.

  • Exit (Ctrl-Q) — This quits the application.

Edit

This menu contains:

  • Undo (Ctrl-Z) — This undoes your last change.

  • Cut (Ctrl-X) — This removes any text or data which is selected and places it in the buffer.

  • Copy (Ctrl-C) — This copies any text or data which is selected into the buffer.

  • Paste (Ctrl-V) — This pastes any text or data which is copied into the buffer.

  • Delete (Ctrl-D) — This removes the selected text.

  • Find… — This command opens the Find dialog.

  • Find Next — This finds the next occurance of a string you have already searched for.

  • Replace… — This opens the Replace dialog.

  • Query… — This opens the query dialog box. The query dialog box allows you to query gettext domains for translation.

  • Header… — This opens a dialog box which allows you to edit information stored in the po file's header.

View

This menu contains:

  • Message — This shows the message in the edit area.

  • Numbers — This shows the numbers in the edit area.

  • C format — This shows the C format strings present in the message in the edit area.

  • Hotkey — This shows the hotkeys present in the message in the edit area.

Message state

This menu contains:

  • Translated — This ...

  • Fuzzy — This ...

  • Sticky — This ...

Settings

This menu contains:

  • Preferences… — This opens the Preferences Dialog, which allows you to configure many settings.

Help

This menu contains:

  • Gtranslator Manual — This opens the GNOME Help Browser (or Nautilus) and displays this manual.

  • About — This opens the About dialog which shows basic information about Gtranslator, such as the author's name, the application version number, and the URL for the application's Web page.

  • The Gtranslator webpage — This opens the Gtranslator's webpage.

Available commandline options

Gtranslator understands a number of command line options:

--help

Shows you a short help message on the command line.

--version

Shows you the version of Gtranslator.

--display

Lets you define the display to start gtranslator on.

--webalize

Prints out a htmlized output file (you must give the html output filename as the next argument) of the po file.

An example would be:
gtranslator --webalize=Evolution.html tr.po

--scheme

Sets the syntax color scheme to the given file.

For example:
gtranslator --scheme=Schemefile

--geometry

Lets you define a standard geometry string to which the gtranslator window will conform.

An example call would be:
gtranslator --geometry="320x240+0+0" tr.po
(This opens gtranslator at "+0+0", the left upper corner, with a size of 320x240).