help->about translation for all locales

[Nicolas Delorme]

First off, I am working with version pidgin version 2.3.1 and more 
precisely the gtkdialogs.c in the pidgin directory.

I have been given the task of translating the Help->About message 
dialog.  Unfortunately for me, what thought would be a quick and easy 
task is turning out to be a little bit time consuming.

My first idea was to get the pidgin-2.3.1 source from the web and to 
copy my missing 'strid's from there.  I immediately discovered that the 
messages displayed in the new pidgin-2.3.1 project is different from the 
one I had originally.  Even though this seems a little odd it isn't a 
concern.  I don't know from what source we got our copy, but it's in our 
svn now and I'm expected to make it translatable.

My next move was to run xgettext on gtkdialogs.c in order to extract 
it's strings.  Unfortunately, one of the strings in the file contains a 
'®' sign and this seems to be responsible for xgettext being unable to 
work on the file because it is a non-ASCII character.  When I remove the 
problematic sign xgettext is able to function, but that one string that 
contained the ® is useless.  Even if I manually add ® in the pot file.

I've noticed that the version of pidgin that I got off the web and that 
pidgin-2.4.1 don't (no longer?) have the ® sign in there Help->About 
dialogs.  

My question is this.  Is there a way for me to correctly extract strings 
from this file without have to modify it?  xgettext with specific 
arguments?  I've noticed scripts in the main pidgin directory that could 
possibly be handy: intltool-update and intltool-extract.  Are these 
possibly solutions? If so where can I find proper documentation?

I hope I have given enough details for someone to understand my issue.  
If not please let me know and I would be more than happy to fill in any 
blanks.


Thanks,
Nic