(long) Advice on the internationalization of GConf schemas

[Simon Bates <simon bates utoronto ca>]

Dear all,

I was wondering if I could ask you for some advice on the internationalization 
of GConf schemas.

I am working on the gok project in the Gnome CVS and wondering what the best 
way is to setup our GConf schemas. Currently, the schemas go through a number 
of transformations:

1. We start with an m4 file (gok.schemas.m4)

This is processed by m4 to give:

2. A schemas file with placeholders for the install directory (gok.schemas.in)

It is this file that is processed by the internationalization tools, it is 
named in po/POTFILES.in

At install time this file has strings "$pkgdatadir" replaced by the value of 
pkgdatadir from automake, using sed. For example "/usr/local/share/gok". Giving us:

3. Schemas file (gok.schemas)

There are a number of problems with the current scheme:

1. gok.schemas.in is not processed by intltool-merge to insert translations

2. gok.schemas.m4 and gok.schemas.in are both in CVS

But you should not modify gok.schemas.in directly. Rather you should modify 
gok.schemas.m4 and build gok.schames.in from it. But having both in CVS does 
not make this at all clear.

I was wondering if you could offer me some advice on how I can fix this situation.

1. Could I remove gok.schemas.in from CVS and generate it from gok.schemas.m4 
at 'make'. Could this work with intltool? Could we name a file that is 
generated and that does not exist at cvs check out in po/POTFILES.in?

2. Does it make sense to use sed to replace $pkgdatadir at 'make' time?

If the answers to these questions are yes does this scheme seem reasonable:

1. gok-with-references.schemas.m4

m4

2. gok-with-references.schemas.in

intltool-merge

3. gok-with-references.schemas

sed (replacing the string "$pkgdatadir" with the value of pkgdatadir)

4. gok.schemas

Thank you very much for your time,
Simon.