[PATCH] i18n: deprecate intltool and use only gettext (+itstool)

[Aleksander Morgado]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 1:02 AM, Aleksander Morgado
<aleksander at aleksander.es> wrote:
> Instead of mixing both intltool and gettext, which not always work
> correctly together, this patch obsoletes intltool and uses only
> gettext (plus itstool for the translation of policy XML files using
> ITS rules, as intltool already did).
>
> See migration steps for GNOME projects here:
>   https://wiki.gnome.org/MigratingFromIntltoolToGettext
>
> Worth noting that this patch includes under version control the two
> files that are generated by itstool, so that it isn't a build
> dependency for the usual case of non-maintainer builds from git
> checkouts. These two files may be explicitly rebuilt automatically
> after a 'maintainer-clean' operation.
>
> Also, instead of relying on autotools to generate the policy file with
> the correct MM_DEFAULT_USER_POLICY substitution (based on the polkit
> policy type requested), we now do this ourselves after translations
> have been included in the XML file.
> ---
>
> Hey everyone,
>
> Trying to cleanup the intltool+gettext mess, by deprecating intltool completely as done in multiple GNOME projects.
>
> Some things I'm not so sure about:
>   * The patch adds to version control the two files that would be generated by itstool, to avoid having it a build dependency for the general user building from git. I'm not sure this is relevant any more as multiple platforms already support itstool, so should we just make this tool required on git builds and avoid having those generated files in git?
>   * The wiki.gnome.org instructions said that only the .pot file would be needed to be pushed to git, but to me the other generated file (the one with the translations) also would need to be in git, otherwise how would a user get it if it doesn't have itstool installed?
>   * The rule to generate the policy.in file uses itstool and *.gmo files as input taken from "$(top_srcdir)/po". Shouldn't it be "$(top_builddir)/po"?
>
> Comments/review/tests welcome
>

One thing I've noticed when using this patch is that now running "make
dist" will update the "POT-Creation-Date:" in po/*.po files. Not sure
if there's any way we can avoid that.

-- 
Aleksander
https://aleksander.es