Guidelines and HOWTOs

This section contains information about tools for KDE development.

For development

For debugging

For

Internationalization (i18n) Tools

Lokalize

Lokalize is a computer-aided translation system that focuses on productivity and quality assurance. It has components usual for CAT tools: translation memory, glossary, and also a unique translation merging (synchronization) capability. It is targeted for software translation and also integrates external conversion tools for freelance office document translation.

Dr. Klash

This little utility, once activated, can present a report about conflicting shortcuts in menus. Not only is this helpful for translators but also for developers. A little hand editing of `kde-config --localprefix`/share/config/kdeglobals activates this feature:

[Development]
CheckAccelerators=F12
AutoCheckAccelerators=false
AlwaysShowCheckAccelerators=false

Pressing F12 will show a dialog containing which accelerators in the currently focussed interface conflict and provide suggestions for new accelerators. If no accelerators conflict or Dr. Klash has nothing to suggest, no popup dialog will be displayed.

With AutoCheckAccelerators enabled the dialog will popup automatically if a conflict exists and AlwaysShowCheckAccelerators can force the dialog to always popup even if there are no conflicts to report.

The x-test language

This helper language serves as a debugging aid for people finding untranslated strings in applications. If you start your application with the "x-test" locale, all translated strings will appear with trailing and leading xx's. First you have to check out these "translations" from l10n-kde4/x-test and install them.

After you've built l10n-kde4/x-test and installed it, run your application using the "x-test" locale. This can be done by launching it from the command line like this:

> KDE_LANG=x-test kspread

This will start KSpread using the "x-test" locale no matter what your current language setting is. Look for strings that do not have the xx's. If xx's are missing from a string, it could be due to missing i18n calls or even missing or incorrectly generated .pot files. Consult the i18n tutorials for further information.

When checking for untranslated strings, be sure to check all the WhatsThis help and tooltips.

Examining .po files

You can look at the translated .po files to see if a string is present and has been translated. For example, here's a portion of l10n/de/messages/kdebase/konqueror.po:

#: konq_mainwindow.cc:3707 konq_tabs.cc:84
msgid "&New Tab"
msgstr "Neues &Unterfenster"

The string to be translated is given on the msgid line. The translated string is on the msgstr line. Notice that the exact same string to translate came from konq_mainwindow.cc and also from konq_tabs.cc. This saves the translators from having to translate the same identical string twice.

You can also use Lokalize to examine .po files. Lokalize is part of the kdesdk module.

Note

More information on writing and translating documentation can be found on the l10n project site.

Helper Tools

Get information about KDE's installation - kde-config

The tool kde-config helps to find out more about a KDE installation.

Driving Konqueror From Scripts - kfmclient

kfmclient is a small tool to communicate with Konqueror.

Updating User Configuration Files - kconf_update

kconf_update is a tool designed to update config files.

Generating apidox

tools that help develop and generate API documentation for your code.

svnmerge.py

This tool helps keeping track of merges between different SVN branches

Quality Assurance

Project Management

KDE is transitioning to [phabricator.org Phabricator] for project management. You can get started with Phabricator on the getting started page. The older Review Board is limited to code reviews only: see here for more details.

Continuous Building - Jenkins

Jenkins

kdelibs on kitware

English Breakfast Network - Static Analysis

Krazy - Code Analysis, Usage Tutorial

APIDOX - API Documentation Statistics

Sanitizer - DocBook Checker

Usability Checks

HOWTOs

Development

• Use Git
• Build from source
• Use CMake
• Debug a program
• Get a Contributor Account

To move here

Applications/Versioning

Further resources

• Further resources