The K Desktop Environment

4.3. Search

The search section allows you to customize various settings for searching in previous translated strings. There are three pages: General, Parameters and Files.

4.3.1. General

General settings are common for all search types. If you check Automatically start search option then search is automatically started whenever you switch to another entry in the editor. You can choose where to search in section Default Search. From three items radiobuttons group you can select what search type is default. You can also start searching manually by choosing an entry in the popup menu that appears either when clicking at Tools->Search or keeping the search button in the toolbar pressed for a while.

Default searching setting is used when searching is started automatically or when pressing the search button in the toolbar.

You can define where to find the needed files on page Files.

4.3.2. Parameters

You can choose here which characters has to be ignored when comparing two strings or if you want to search case sensitive. If you want ignore additional characters, activate option Ignore Other and type in the field behind this button the characters, that has to be ignored. For example, if you type in ?!_ all of this three characters will be ignored. Since searching in a auxiliary is intended to find exactly the same message these options are not used, when searching in the auxiliary.

Here is comprehensive list for these options:

Case Sensitive

When searching characters case don't matter.

Ignore Ampersand

Ignore ampersand character, making possible to match even words which contain ampersand for keyboard accelerator.

Ignore newlines

Allow to match words which span on multiple lines.

Ignore Dots

Allow to match words which can contain dots.

Ignore Other

In right editline you can write characters desired to be ignored when searching.

As an addition for flexibility, you can choose how searched string is matched: Since searching in a auxiliary is intended to find exactly the same message these options are not used, when searching in the auxiliary. Note that is not possible to deselect all option, but you can choose one or more.

4.3.3. Files

First editbox allow you to set language code for the language you are translating in. This is at the moment just useful, if you translate for more than one language and don't want to always have to change the pathes of the files in Locations section. In this case you can use the string @LANG@ in the path to a file, which will then replaced by your language code. Default value for this field is C.

Note

Strings like @VARIABLE@ represent simple variable to text substitutions. These variables are not related with m4 macro processor!

If you insert the variables @PACKAGE@ or @LANG@ in the path, these will be replaced with either the language code or the name of the package you have currently opened (this means the name of the file without extension). E.g.: giving the path /home/translations/@PACKAGE@/@LANG@.messages and editing the file /usr/local/src/po/kbabel.po, will result in /home/translations/kbabel/de.messages (assumed you have entered de in the language field above). Bellow is locations list for searching in MO files, compendium and auxiliary files:
Path to MO-files

Configure what file has to be used when activating search in already compiled PO files. This is last resort if you not have original source for MO files. You should point this path to your locale directory in KDE directory tree. E.g: /opt/kde/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES.

Default value: none

Path to compendium file

Configure what file has to be used when activating search in compendium. The compendium is a normal PO-File, which should contain a list of standard translation from your translation team. If you don't have one, you can also use a file that contains all used translations of your team (e.g. the $lang.messages file in the KDE Project, where $lang is your language code).

Default value: @LANG@.messages

Path to auxiliary file

Configure what file has to be used when activating search in auxiliary. The auxiliary should help you finding the context of a translation by looking up the same message in a message catalog of the same package but translated to another language. This way you can have a look how this message is translated in another language. It's very usefull if you speak other language or auxiliary file is somehow related. E.g: french, spanish, romanian. It's very helping because you can find a lot of synonimes.

Default value: ../de/@PACKAGE@.po