Migrate away from intltool/glib-gettextize and use gettext directly

intltool was needed because gettext hasn't have enough functionalities:

It used to be that Gettext could only translate strings in source code, and some limited other formats. Since about version 0.18, Gettext has been adding support for a lot more file formats that are used in modern GNOME desktop applications. This has slowly been making Intltool obsolete, which was invented to bridge that gap between what Gettext supported and what applications needed.

We don't need to use intltool and glib-gettextize anymore. This can simplify xdt-autogen script.

First, test the port of a panel plugin, like xfce4-sample-plugin

See :

• https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/GnomeGoals/GettextMigration
• https://wiki.gnome.org/MigratingFromIntltoolToGettext
• https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeCommon/Migration

changed milestone to %Xfce 4.18

added 2. Enhancement label

mentioned in merge request apps/mousepad!70 (closed)

mentioned in merge request !42 (merged)

assigned to @skunnyk

mentioned in merge request panel-plugins/xfce4-sample-plugin!5 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfce4-appfinder!24 (merged)

changed milestone to %Xfce 4.20

mentioned in merge request panel-plugins/xfce4-mpc-plugin!3 (merged)

mentioned in merge request libxfce4ui!90 (merged)

Based on https://wiki.gnome.org/MigratingFromIntltoolToGettext.

In configure.ac.in

Remove:

IT_PROG_INTLTOOL
XDT_I18N

Add:

GETTEXT_PACKAGE="$PACKAGE"
AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([GETTEXT_PACKAGE], ["$GETTEXT_PACKAGE"], [Name of default gettext domain])
AC_SUBST([GETTEXT_PACKAGE])

AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.19.8])

In main Makefile.am

Remove occurrences of:

EXTRA_DIST = \
	README.md \
	intltool-extract.in \
	intltool-merge.in \
	intltool-update.in \

DISTCLEANFILES = \
	intltool-extract \
	intltool-merge \
	intltool-update \
	po/.intltool-merge-cache.lock

In po/:

Add: po/Makevars (from gettextize) or copy it from another project already migrated.

Change:

XGETTEXT_OPTIONS = --from-code=UTF-8 --keyword=_ --keyword=N_ --keyword=C_:1c,2 --keyword=NC_:1c,2 --keyword=g_dngettext:2,3 --add-comments
MSGMERGE_OPTIONS = --quiet
PO_DEPENDS_ON_POT = no
DIST_DEPENDS_ON_UPDATE_PO = no 

Update: po/POTFILES.in and remove all glade suffix, like [type: gettext/glade]

Create LINGUAS: for i in po/*.po; do test -e "$i" && basename -- "$i" .po ; done > po/LINGUAS This is only needed the first time. The file will then be maitained by our transifex sync utility

For .desktop and appdata files:

In makefile.am.

Beware, Makefile needs <tab> characters!

Remove:

@INTLTOOL_DESKTOP_RULE@
@INTLTOOL_XML_RULE@

For desktop:

Remove leading _ in all .desktop.in files

In Makefile.am, add the .desktop or .appdata generation, for example:

xfce4-run.desktop: xfce4-run.desktop.in
       $(AM_V_GEN)$(MSGFMT) --desktop --template $< -d $(top_srcdir)/po -o $@

For appdata:

org.xfce.xfce4-appfinder.appdata.xml: org.xfce.xfce4-appfinder.appdata.xml.in
       $(AM_V_GEN)$(MSGFMT) --xml --template $< -d $(top_srcdir)/po -o $@

Note: If you have any @INTLTOOL_XML_NOMERGE_RULE@, you should include the generated .xml in git and remove the .xml.in

Finalize

Update .gitignore Update autogen.sh to set at least 4.17.0 as required version for xdt: XDT_AUTOGEN_REQUIRED_VERSION="4.17.0"

Run ./autogen.sh && make distcheck to check that everything is ok

Open the MR

Tried this with xfce4-notifyd, and it didn't quite work: the AC_SUBST([GETTEXT_PACKAGE]) doesn't work because GETTEXT_PACKAGE isn't actually defined as a shell var (the AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED doesn't do it for what AC_SUBST needs). I ended up doing:

GETTEXT_PACKAGE="$PACKAGE"
AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([GETTEXT_PACKAGE], ["$GETTEXT_PACKAGE"], [Name of default gettext domain])
AC_SUBST([GETTEXT_PACKAGE])

... which worked.

Another little thing to think about apparently: po must be visited after all directories containing .desktop files (not sure if it's still necessary though, it seems to work without it).

I don't get it.

AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED([GETTEXT_PACKAGE], ["$PACKAGE"], [Name of default gettext domain])
AC_SUBST([GETTEXT_PACKAGE])

Works for me in any cases, it is initialized to $PACKAGE ! What was your error ? I tried to revert on xfce4-notifyd and it works too.

If you try to add a substitution of @GETTEXT_PACKAGE@ in a Makefile.am it should not work (I tried with libxfce4windowing!16 (merged) to confirm).

Aaah ok :) So now, you are at least as up to date on this subject as I am :D

"documentation" updated :)

@skunnyk Also autogen.sh should require xdt >= 4.17.0: libxfce4windowing!20 (merged)

mentioned in merge request exo!63 (merged)

mentioned in merge request libxfce4windowing!16 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfdesktop!99 (merged)

@skunnyk Removing XDT_I18N also removes the check for bind_textdomain_codeset, which could break the build e.g. on FreeBSD for projects using this function (I don't know if there are many¹): see https://www.gnu.org/software/gnulib/manual/html_node/bind_005ftextdomain_005fcodeset.html

--

1. For example in the Xfce group:

libxfce4ui/libxfce4kbd-private/xfce-shortcuts-editor-dialog.c:62:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
libxfce4ui/libxfce4kbd-private/xfce-shortcuts-xfwm4.c:129:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
libxfce4ui/libxfce4kbd-private/xfce-shortcuts.c:98:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
libxfce4ui/libxfce4kbd-private/xfce-shortcut-dialog.c:134:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
libxfce4ui/libxfce4kbd-private/xfce-shortcuts-editor.c:111:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
libxfce4util/libxfce4util/xfce-i18n.c:174:  bind_textdomain_codeset (package, encoding);
libxfce4util/libxfce4util/libxfce4util-private.c:61:      bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
xfce4-panel/libxfce4panel/xfce-panel-plugin.c:752:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
exo/exo/exo-private.c:50:      bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
tumbler/tumbler/tumbler-file-info.c:93:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar/plugins/thunar-apr/thunar-apr-private.c:48:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar/plugins/thunar-wallpaper/thunar-wallpaper-plugin.c:58:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar/plugins/thunar-uca/thunar-uca-private.c:48:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");

Good catch. I wonder if I should revert back to XDT_I18N usage to avoid adding too many check on every configure.ac ? I wanted to get rid of it for no strong reasons and remove "custom" things

If this is the only thing sometimes necessary that XDT_I18N brings (apart from GETTEXT_PACKAGE discussed above), I would rather be in favor of removing it. There are actually only 6 components above in Xfce, I can't find any in panel plugins, here is what I find for apps:

xfce4-screensaver/savers/popsquares.c:43:    bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
xfce4-screensaver/savers/floaters.c:1124:    bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
xfce4-screensaver/savers/slideshow.c:71:    bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
gigolo/src/main.c:121:	bind_textdomain_codeset(GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
mousepad/mousepad/main.c:40:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");

and in thunar plugins:

thunar-media-tags-plugin/thunar-plugin/media-tags-plugin.c:60:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar-vcs-plugin/thunar-vcs-plugin/thunar-vcs-plugin.c:61:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar-archive-plugin/thunar-archive-plugin/thunar-archive-plugin.c:59:  bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");
thunar-shares-plugin/thunar-plugin/thunar-shares-plugin.c:54:	bind_textdomain_codeset (GETTEXT_PACKAGE, "UTF-8");

So not much in the end.

And libxfce4util do the job in configure.ac:

AC_CHECK_FUNCS([gethostname getpwnam setlocale strdup \
                bind_textdomain_codeset])

And in libxfce4util/xfce-i18n.c on xfce_textdomain :

  #ifdef HAVE_BIND_TEXTDOMAIN_CODESET
    if (G_UNLIKELY (encoding == NULL))
      encoding = "UTF-8";
    bind_textdomain_codeset (package, encoding);
  #endif

Impacted project does not uses xfce_textdomain btw.

Libs should not use it I think, there are too many things in it, they should just bind. But maybe apps and plugins could use it if they already depend on libutil (Mousepad only depends on it optionally, and it does check for bind_textdomain_codeset).

Libs should not use it I think, there are too many things in it, they should just bind.

See also libxfce4ui@60b1b577.

mentioned in merge request apps/xfce4-notifyd!56 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfce4-panel!110 (merged)

mentioned in merge request tumbler!25 (merged)

mentioned in merge request garcon!29 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfce4-power-manager!36 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfce4-session!38 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfce4-settings!106 (merged)

mentioned in merge request libxfce4util!35 (merged)

mentioned in merge request xfconf!31 (merged)

mentioned in merge request apps/mousepad!126 (merged)

mentioned in merge request apps/ristretto!38 (merged)

mentioned in commit panel-plugins/xfce4-sample-plugin@3e0fa0f7

mentioned in issue panel-plugins/xfce4-verve-plugin#6

marked this issue as related to libxfce4util#25 (closed)

mentioned in issue libxfce4util#25 (closed)

mentioned in merge request !96 (closed)

So, what is missing here to finalize the migration ?

In xfce, I think the only things missing are thunar* and xfwm4** (and your MR for xfce4-appfinder). Then there are all the apps except xfce4-notifyd, mousepad and ristretto, and all the plugins (panel, thunar).

---

* thunar!438 (merged)
** xfwm4!145 (merged)

Most apps should have a MR now, but there are 3 apps left I think:

• catfish: Using python-distutils-extra right now.
• xfce4-panel-profiles: Plain Makefile (?)
• xfce4-volumed-pulse: Probably has no translations.

Many thanks to you and @sgn for all the work done so far, there's really not much left now :)

I suppose catfish and xfce4-panel-profiles could be migrated too, but I don't know if there's anything more to do than replace the intltool command lines in this case. I'm not sure how it works in transifex. Maybe @skunnyk can tell us if he comes across it.

Well, if that's all that's left anyway, that's fine :)

I'm not sure how it works in transifex.

I think I just got the answer by reviewing infra/transifex!2: po/ must contain Makevars. Or wait for these projects to be ported to meson later...

I've re-written the setup.py for catfish, it's a big change. But the code is straigh-forward, I think.

With that change, we no longer depends on unmaintained python3-distutils-extra, or intltool. We still need setuptools, though, but it's a dependency of python3-distutils-extra already, anyway.