gettext: Main PO Commands
8.3.2 Main PO mode Commands
---------------------------
After setting up Emacs with something similar to the lines in ⇒
Installation, PO mode is activated for a window when Emacs finds a PO
file in that window. This puts the window read-only and establishes a
po-mode-map, which is a genuine Emacs mode, in a way that is not derived
from text mode in any way. Functions found on ‘po-mode-hook’, if any,
will be executed.
When PO mode is active in a window, the letters ‘PO’ appear in the
mode line for that window. The mode line also displays how many entries
of each kind are held in the PO file. For example, the string
‘132t+3f+10u+2o’ would tell the translator that the PO mode contains 132
DONTPRINTYET translated entries (⇒Translated Entries, 3 fuzzy entries (*noteDONTPRINTYET translated entries (⇒Translated Entries, 3 fuzzy entries (⇒
Fuzzy Entries), 10 untranslated entries (⇒Untranslated Entries)
and 2 obsolete entries (⇒Obsolete Entries). Zero-coefficients
items are not shown. So, in this example, if the fuzzy entries were
unfuzzied, the untranslated entries were translated and the obsolete
entries were deleted, the mode line would merely display ‘145t’ for the
counters.
The main PO commands are those which do not fit into the other
categories of subsequent sections. These allow for quitting PO mode or
for managing windows in special ways.
‘_’
Undo last modification to the PO file (‘po-undo’).
‘Q’
Quit processing and save the PO file (‘po-quit’).
‘q’
Quit processing, possibly after confirmation
(‘po-confirm-and-quit’).
‘0’
Temporary leave the PO file window (‘po-other-window’).
‘?’
‘h’
Show help about PO mode (‘po-help’).
‘=’
Give some PO file statistics (‘po-statistics’).
‘V’
Batch validate the format of the whole PO file (‘po-validate’).
The command ‘_’ (‘po-undo’) interfaces to the Emacs _undo_ facility.
⇒Undoing Changes (emacs)Undo. Each time ‘_’ is typed,
modifications which the translator did to the PO file are undone a
little more. For the purpose of undoing, each PO mode command is
atomic. This is especially true for the ‘<RET>’ command: the whole
edition made by using a single use of this command is undone at once,
even if the edition itself implied several actions. However, while in
the editing window, one can undo the edition work quite parsimoniously.
The commands ‘Q’ (‘po-quit’) and ‘q’ (‘po-confirm-and-quit’) are used
when the translator is done with the PO file. The former is a bit less
verbose than the latter. If the file has been modified, it is saved to
disk first. In both cases, and prior to all this, the commands check if
any untranslated messages remain in the PO file and, if so, the
translator is asked if she really wants to leave off working with this
PO file. This is the preferred way of getting rid of an Emacs PO file
buffer. Merely killing it through the usual command ‘C-x k’
(‘kill-buffer’) is not the tidiest way to proceed.
The command ‘0’ (‘po-other-window’) is another, softer way, to leave
PO mode, temporarily. It just moves the cursor to some other Emacs
window, and pops one if necessary. For example, if the translator just
got PO mode to show some source context in some other, she might
discover some apparent bug in the program source that needs correction.
This command allows the translator to change sex, become a programmer,
and have the cursor right into the window containing the program she (or
rather _he_) wants to modify. By later getting the cursor back in the
PO file window, or by asking Emacs to edit this file once again, PO mode
is then recovered.
The command ‘h’ (‘po-help’) displays a summary of all available PO
mode commands. The translator should then type any character to resume
normal PO mode operations. The command ‘?’ has the same effect as ‘h’.
The command ‘=’ (‘po-statistics’) computes the total number of
entries in the PO file, the ordinal of the current entry (counted from
1), the number of untranslated entries, the number of obsolete entries,
and displays all these numbers.
The command ‘V’ (‘po-validate’) launches ‘msgfmt’ in checking and
verbose mode over the current PO file. This command first offers to
save the current PO file on disk. The ‘msgfmt’ tool, from GNU
‘gettext’, has the purpose of creating a MO file out of a PO file, and
PO mode uses the features of this program for checking the overall
format of a PO file, as well as all individual entries.
The program ‘msgfmt’ runs asynchronously with Emacs, so the
translator regains control immediately while her PO file is being
studied. Error output is collected in the Emacs ‘*compilation*’ buffer,
displayed in another window. The regular Emacs command ‘C-x`’
(‘next-error’), as well as other usual compile commands, allow the
translator to reposition quickly to the offending parts of the PO file.
Once the cursor is on the line in error, the translator may decide on
any PO mode action which would help correcting the error.
Info Catalog
gettext: Installation
gettext: PO Mode
gettext: Entry Positioning