From KBabel 1.10 (KDE 3.4) on, KBabel has the concept of projects and therefore the settings have been split in two categories: the global settings and the project settings (also called project configuration).
GNU gettext uses a term called "project", which has nothing to do with KBabel's projects. GNU gettext means by project an application which is related to the PO file. For KBabel, a project is much bigger. It can mean a set of applications, like KDE.
KBabel has always a current project, even if it is the default project. KBabel has not mode without any project. A project is always for KBabel's editor and KBabel's catalog manager.
Unfortunately the current implementation of projects has a few known problems.
An example is that in the global settings, there is no setting for the default user, his/her default language and other similar important global user data. It means that such data must be entered again each time that a new project is created.
Another problem is the new project wizard. It does not ask enough information, especially it fails to ask for the team email address. So it is recommended to check the project settings after having run the wizard.
Currently you cannot copy projects from inside KBabel, so apparently you cannot easily share good settings. However you are free to copy the project outside KBabel and to load the copied project into KBabel.
While KBabel's defaults are oriented toward working with and for KDE, KBabel can be used to translate PO files of other projects. However mostly you will have to tweak the settings to the need of your project. This is especially true for GNU and GNU-like projects, which need quite different defaults than for KDE.
One problem is that KBabel is relatively agressive when saving PO files and replaces setting of the PO files by settings of the projects, if not told otherwise. This might look very strange to somebody not used to KDE. However KDE has 900+ POT files to translate for the GUI messages only. So for such a task, much automatisation is wanted. Taking time to set a project is little compared to the time gained thereafter. Of course, as non-KDE user, you might be less fortunate. You need to do more settings, as the defaults are not entirely suitable and you will not gain much by doing many translations, as GNU projects have typically only one POT file to translate.
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