This page currently describes v1.0.0-beta3 - it’ll be updated as later betas and the final 1.0.0 ship.
Virtaal is back after being dormant since 2020, ported from Python 2/GTK2 to Python 3/GTK3 - a rewrite of most of the application’s internals with no intended change to the day-to-day translating experience.
Windows installer, macOS .dmg (Intel and Apple Silicon), and a
Flatpak build for Linux - see Installation.
Warning
macOS and Windows binaries are currently unsigned - Gatekeeper/ SmartScreen will warn on first launch. This is expected:
macOS: don’t double-click the app on first launch - it’ll
refuse to open at all (“Apple could not verify… is free of
malware”), with no way past that dialog itself. Instead,
right-click (or Control-click) Virtaal.app in Finder and
choose Open from the menu - the dialog that appears this time
has an Open button. Only needed once; a normal double-click
works from then on.
If it instead says “Virtaal is damaged and can’t be opened”, that’s Gatekeeper’s stricter response to a completely unsigned app - the right-click-Open trick above won’t clear it. Open Terminal and run:
xattr -cr /path/to/Virtaal.app
then double-click normally.
Windows: the installer shows a blue “Windows protected your PC” screen. Click More info, then Run anyway.
Full Python 3 / GTK 3 port.
Native file-open/save dialogs on macOS and Windows.
macOS keyboard shortcuts now use Cmd instead of Ctrl throughout.
Virtaal remembers its window position and size between runs.
Spell checking works in the frozen Windows and macOS Intel builds.
Windows file-association handling fixed, including per-format icons
and .ts (Qt Linguist vs. MPEG Transport Stream) disambiguation.
HTTP requests (terminology/TM lookups, dictionary and autocorrect downloads) now time out instead of hanging indefinitely.
A right-click thesaurus look-up plugin; right-click “Add Term…” for a selected word or phrase; look-ups no longer require selecting a word first.
Help > Show Logs, and a crash dialog with a one-click bug-report button on uncaught exceptions.
Real OS keyboard focus on macOS across most dialogs (Preferences, Add Term, Add Missing Language, Save/Discard/Cancel, and more); Preferences also opens via Cmd+, and is titled “Settings” to match the system convention.
Several crash fixes: adding a language with a non-ASCII code, Replace All on XLIFF/TMX/TS files, File > Update, a corrupt config file, and TM matching on non-ASCII text.
The Web Look-ups dialog no longer duplicates its own columns and buttons (each click firing once per time the dialog had ever been opened) when reopened.
Preferences’ Plug-ins/Placeables lists and the Select Look-up Services dialog: a plugin’s “Configure…” button is no longer hidden by a too-narrow column, arrow-key navigation no longer steals keyboard focus into a row, and a toggle no longer risks a 100%-CPU hang or loses your place in a scrolled list.
Fixed: Virtaal’s own interface translations failed to load at all in a frozen build, regardless of the selected UI language.
A Preferences UI language selector, and a virtaal --lang
command-line flag to override it for one run.
Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z), alongside the existing Undo.
The Windows installer now offers many more UI languages, matching Inno Setup’s own bundled set instead of a hand-maintained subset.
TM matches no longer show a garbage quality percentage (e.g. over 100%).
A web look-up can now be disabled without deleting it; a plugin’s Configure dialog changes are saved immediately, not just on quit.
Fixed a hang when quitting while a modal dialog is still open, and a crash rendering a TM match with no quality score.
New Chinese (Simplified) translation; updated Brazilian Portuguese.
Ctrl+P now opens Preferences on Windows/Linux (macOS keeps Cmd+,).
No spell checking in the frozen macOS Apple Silicon build.
Some complex scripts (e.g. Amharic) may not render correctly in the frozen Windows build.
Selecting “Incomplete” from the Navigation combo right after launch can fail to switch modes; selecting any other mode works.