intltool

intltool is a handy collection of tools that helps you with translations in software projects. It’s great for extracting translatable strings from different source files like .xml.in, .glade, .desktop.in, and more. But that’s just the start!

What Can intltool Do?

This tool can collect those extracted strings along with messages from traditional source files like .c and .h files into a file called po/$(PACKAGE).pot. Pretty neat, right? And it doesn’t stop there! You can also merge the translations back into your files like .xml, .desktop, and .oaf during the build or installation process.

The Magic of intltoolize

The intltool package comes with a script called intltoolize. This script does all sorts of magic to your module, so if you're building from tarballs, you won’t need to have intltool on hand. It's mainly for those building straight from CVS, similar to how gettext works.

Using intltool in Your Module

If you want to use intltool in your module, here’s what you need to do:

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• First off, install intltool! Make sure that the macro it installs is in aclocal's path. If not, run this command: \nexport ACLOCAL_FLAGS='-I /usr/local/share/aclocal'.
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• Add some lines to autogen.sh:
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echo \"Running intltoolize\"\nintltoolize --copy --force --automake\n

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• Add this line to configure.in:
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AC_PROG_INTLTOOL([minimum required version], [no-xml])\n

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• Add specific files to your Makefile.am:
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• Add <intltool-extract.in>, <intltool-merge.in>, and <intltool-update.in>.
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• Add these tools to DISTCLEANFILES too.
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• Cleans up!
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• You’ll want to remove any old scripts like po/desk.pl and po/update.* because intltool-update will take over their tasks.
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If everything goes well, translatable strings will be automatically pulled into your .po files following these steps.

The Power of intltool-prepare Script

The script called intltool-prepare makes package preparation a breeze. It tries to pull translations from existing .desktop files that might become outdated once you use intltool.

A Few Examples

You can find examples of packages using intltool listed in the USED file. Want to learn more? Check out this link for more details on how it works: \u003ca href='https://softpas.com/app/intltool-for-linux/preview' title='Download intltool' target='_blank'>dive deeper into intltools here!