GNOME Localization Update for Q1 2011

During this quarter, GNOME translation teams worked on delivering localization support for GNOME 3, which was released on April 4 with more than 50 fully supported languages. In comparison to previous development cycles, the road to the GNOME 3.0.0 release was marked with many string freeze breaks that occurred very late in the cycle so that translation teams had to put extra effort into delivering high quality GNOME translations.

GNOME translators also worked on localization support for additional marketing resources related to GNOME 3, including the gnome3.org website.

In preparation for the 3.0.0 release, there was a module set reorganization done in Damned LiesGNOME 3.0 release set in order to better match the gnome-3.0 module set as maintained in JHBuild. Possible ways on how to further improve the GNOME modules representation in Damned Lies were discussed in the gnome-i18n mailing list.

Also, a new functionality was introduced to Damned Lies in that the service now offers translators the so called reduced PO files; these files do not include strings that are rarely visible to (end) users, such as “gschema.xml.in” strings, making it easier for translation teams with limited manpower to translate the GNOME modules.