A few weeks ago, as part of a booksprint on libre/open fonts, some of us started to update the French translation of FontForge, the libre software font editor. Fontforge uses GNU gettext and the UI translation documentation outlines the methodology for getting the messages updated and tested.
This was driven by the need to make the terminology coherent and to illustrate various chapters with screenshots in French for Fontes Libres a book written in French on libre/open fonts and related topics. This book effort has been made possible thanks to FLOSS Manuals fr and the financial support of Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie.
We built upon the previous translation work done by Pierre Hanser and Yannis Haralambous. Interestingly enough, much of the needed translation of
po/fr.po was done and tested using gobby in a hotel lobby over a wireless network. There are much better workflows out there but this ad-hoc method was helpful. There is still a lot left to translate but things are on their way and I hope this can get finished soon and submitted for inclusion upstream.
One more way the wider community will benefit from this booksprint !