Bug 358792

*** Bug 513496 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

From Ángel Navarro in 2025-12-17:

SUMMARY
The placeholder string in the search field is not translated, and seems to not be marked to be translated anymore at source code level.
See the attached picture for clarification.

As I peeked in the .po files in systemsettings' Invent repo, both "Search" and "Search..." msgid strings are marked as obsolete #~ in many languages, meaning that they are not used anymore and thus leaving the string untranslated in all languages. Even though for es/ (my main language) these msgids don't have the #~ mark, it's not used anyway.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Launch systemsettings in a random language e.g. 'LANG=es_MX.UTF-8 systemsettings' (I tried with ar_AR.UTF-8, tr_TR.UTF-8 and so on)
2. Look at the search field

OBSERVED RESULT
"Search..." placeholder string is untranslated no matter the language you open systemsettings on

EXPECTED RESULT
The search field placeholder should be translated "Buscar...", etc.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 
macOS: 
(available in the Info Center app, or by running `kinfo` in a terminal window)
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1

*** Bug 512187 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

From 2anwe:

"Search..." is not translated

SUMMARY
"Search..." in the system settings is not translated.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open system settings
2. Look at the search bar
3. Observe that it's not translated

OBSERVED RESULT
"Search..." in the system settings is not translated.

EXPECTED RESULT
"Search..." in the system settings is translated

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux: CachyOS 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.2 
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.10.0

From Ilya Bizyaev:

Same here, both on KDE Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed, regardless of the active locale

I'm marking this issue as confirmed.

Operating System: Arch Linux 
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.17.9-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 12 × AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM (15.4 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060
Manufacturer: ASUS

I think it's good to move the current focus to systemsettings' product though this may affect other programs as well.

You can see in its .po files that entries for both Search and Search... are marked as obsolete, and in other languages (such as es) they don't even exist.

I don't actually know how the KDE localization system actually works as the documents are quite outdated (KDE3 and 4 days) and are quite hard to follow, so it would be hard for me to guess where the problem exactly is.

DISCLAIMER: Sorry, so many duplicate bugs made me post this on the wrong one :(

Alright, I'm doing a bit more of research all by myself.

First thing I notice:

// in frameworks / kirigami / src / controls / SearchField.qml

```
    placeholderText: qsTr("Search…")

    Accessible.name: qsTr("Search")
    Accessible.searchEdit: true

    focusSequences: [StandardKey.Find]
    inputMethodHints: Qt.ImhNoPredictiveText
    EnterKey.type: Qt.EnterKeySearch
    rightActions: [
        Kirigami.Action {
            icon.name: root.LayoutMirroring.enabled ? "edit-clear-locationbar-ltr" : "edit-clear-locationbar-rtl"
            visible: root.text.length > 0
            text: qsTr("Clear search")
```

So I tried hardcoding text:

```
    placeholderText: "Buscar..."

    Accessible.name: "Buscar..."
```

Changing the second one didn't work but changing the first... That did change the placeholder text.

So... typing a random string also worked:

```
    placeholderText: "Ataraxia..."
```

Hardcoding strings does work :D

So I tried to use a random string from the same systemsettings with qsTr():

```
    placeholderText: qsTr("Donate")
```

And it still remained in English.

That makes me think that qsTr() is not doing anything on that specific part of the code.

It seems strange for me that I tried to set the "Select All" text as "Search..." for its respective qsTr() and the "Select All" button still remained select all but translated in Koko (the gallery) and its msgid's appeared marked with #|

Another potential clue: In the "Plasma Search" KCM, the "Search..." string is correctly translated and doesn't show up in a simple search in systemsettings' repo nor by serching "SearchField".

Hey, I started a merge request but the janitor didn't catch it. Could you please review it?

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/systemsettings/-/merge_requests/386