A couple of hours with iLocalize and Camino 2.0alpha1

After spending a little time on the building routine of Camino 1.6.5, I downloaded Camino 2.0alpha1 and looked at what's going to be done for the localization teams.

In the meantime, I had upgraded iLocalize to version 3.8 through its software update system: at the moment, it looks like a seamless upgrade with near to zero impact on the Camino l10n process.
One of the little things that make iLocalize useful is the ability to detect changes when you upgrade the base package (I can't say if this feature was present in previous versions); here is what was listed, when I upgraded my Camino 1.6 iLocalize document importing the Camino 2.0alpha1 package:
[added] Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Resources/SUUpdatePermissionPrompt.nib
[added] Resources/InvalidCertOverrideDialog.nib
[deleted] Resources/ExpiredCertDialog.nib
[deleted] Resources/MismatchedCertDomainDialog.nib
[deleted] Resources/UnknownCertIssuerDialog.nib
[updated] Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Resources/Sparkle.strings
[updated] Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Resources/SUAutomaticUpdateAlert.nib
[updated] Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Resources/SUUpdateAlert.nib
[updated] PreferencePanes/Appearance.prefPane/Resources/RegionNames.strings
[updated] PreferencePanes/General.prefPane/Resources/General.nib
[updated] PreferencePanes/History.prefPane/Resources/Localizable.strings
[updated] PreferencePanes/Privacy.prefPane/Resources/Localizable.strings
[updated] PreferencePanes/Privacy.prefPane/Resources/Privacy.nib
[updated] PreferencePanes/WebFeatures.prefPane/Resources/Localizable.strings
[updated] Resources/bookmarks.plist
[updated] Resources/BookmarksEditing.nib
[updated] Resources/BrowserWindow.nib
[updated] Resources/CertificateDialogs.strings
[updated] Resources/CertificatesWindow.nib
[updated] Resources/FindBar.nib
[updated] Resources/FindBarTextured.nib
[updated] Resources/GenerateKeyPairDialog.nib
[updated] Resources/InfoPlist.strings
[updated] Resources/Localizable.strings
[updated] Resources/MainMenu.nib
[updated] Resources/PopupBlockView.nib
[updated] Resources/SearchEngineEditor.nib
[updated] Resources/ViewCertificateDialog.nib

Not a big deal for localizers! In fact, I was able to get all the updated (way under 100, including several Sparkle strings that might probably be already translated at Sparkle's site or CVS) strings right in my language in about an hour and then started reviewing the updated .nib files (I asked iLocalize to reset the imported .nib files to the original - i.e. English - layout, so I could review them and avoid the annoying situation where Camino's interface shows up differently in different languages).
Again, not big changes were needed and after a combined 2 hours, I had a translated Camino 2.0alpha1 up an running.

So, my advice to existing Camino localization teams is to go and pick the copy of Camino alpha, update their existing iLocalize document or use a recent Camino Multilingual release as a base. You will save a little work in the near future (when possibly some Gecko strings will become available for localization - Bug 394105) and you'll be able to test several awesome new features.

As for new teams, or for teams with partial work done... please contact me and let's push Camino beyond its current language boundaries!