Reviews and Ratings
I've used many many translation tools. Some being simple, some being feature full, none matching both requirements.
I now use Virtaal for any GUI based translation work, its replaced my venerable vi. Caution: I'm also a Virtaal developer so don't expected an unbiased opinion!
The reason for my change is power and simplicity. The GUI just works, it isn't cluttered with things I don't need. The commands are consistent and logical. The tools works in the way I expect a translation tool to work.
Looking at where Virtaal is going I can simply say this is more power to the people. The advanced features that I need as a translator still need to appear in Virtaal, but this is 0.2! But I know that these are going to be ready at my fingertip, not hidden behind some menu, or cluttering my work space.
Its the little things that sell me on Virtaal. Consistent and well thought out keyboard navigation. The power of the underlying Translate Toolkit that allows me to translate almost any format. I can even translate .mo directly if I want. Using navigation modes I'm in a power position to control how I work and the navigation simply work as normal but I step to the next translation in my selected mode whether its everything, incomplete work or I'm searching.
Don't let me forget autocomplete and autocorrect. I don't know what I was doing before autocomplete and the autocorrect borrowed from OpenOffice.org is simply power.
Did I say I love the fact that there is no catalogue manager, I think that device is a crutch because others have not thought too hard about how to aid how a translator works.
I can't wait for the checks from the Translate Toolkit to be put available directly from Virtaal. Doing that will give me the GUI power for tools that I have been using on the command line for years.
Well done to all the developers. I'm waiting in expectation for the next release.