Here is a screenshot of KBabel.
For convenience KBabel has toolbars to speed up many operations and, for busy users, there are many keyboard shortcuts. The main window is divided into four parts.
The upper-left edit box is read-only and contains the current msgid field from the opened PO-file and its English text.
The bottom-left edit box contains the msgstr field related to the msgid shown and here you can edit the translated text.
The top-right part of the window is a comments panel where you can view the comments added for entry currently being edited.
It can be used:
to find out how the current message is treated by the application (c-formatted or simple)
in some cases, to read helpful comments added by the application's developer to assist the translators in their work—for example, there may be technical hints (used to great effect in the LyX project)
when you need to know which file a message is from because you want to report a spelling mistake in the original English string.
The editor window (in the bottom right) is the most sophisticated part of KBabel's main window. Its size can be adjusted using the splitter line between it and the comment panel (the panel in the top right). The editor window has two tabbed panels—one storing search information, the other context information. The context information tab contain a scrolled view which shows the previous and next 4 entries associated with the current entry—essentially it's a small 'snapshot' of the PO file. While translating, it is very common for message strings to be related to subsequent and previous messages, so the context panel is useful for looking at the nearby messages to get a hint as to how the current message can best be translated. Dialog interface translation is a good example, or widgets with their associated text and "what's this" message.
Each msgid entry can be in three states:
there is no translated text currently associated with the msgstr
msgmerge has tried to match a translated string by looking in rest of PO-file entries. This does not work perfectly and you must edit the translated text to fit the current English text.
the msgid is the completed translated form of the msgstr
The state of the current entry is indicated by two LEDs. Depending on your configuration these can either be in the status bar or above the translated string edit box. Both have a customizable color (to reflect your visual requirements or taste). Please read the Preferences section to see how you can adjust these settings.
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