The Code Kitchen, which is currently working on CakeMail, has a blog post on their new web-based localization tool.
The application is targeted to web developers who use gettext to provide multiple languages for their users, which is somehow a compulsory step in Québec. As CakeMail is being launched in Québec, the Code Kitchen had to provide a perfect interface in both languages, english and french, and were unsatisfied from existing tools.
Duncan Moore points out though that there are already solutions avalaible, like launchpad’s translator tool, and launching a new service wouldn’t make sense if you don’t have enough key differences and advantages from your competitors. If you want my personal opinion, we rolled out either english-only or french-only websites, or hand-coded the translations. Providing a user interface in both languages added a layer of complexity in content delivery and also programmatically; so projects were “downsized” automatically to one language. But I guess this isn’t the norm but the exception. If you are developing multilingual websites, head over to their blog and leave a feedback.
