If this can not currently be done then it most certainly should be the number one feature to add.

Imagine a single installation with 4 bloggers each with their own locale selection and blog. Customizing the skin fully would be much cleaner if translation were automagically done to skin content that doesn't match the core text.

It can be done in 3.3.x, BTW. I've translated my skin's strings (currently limited to "Powered by" and the meta links) to Esperanto and Spanish, and now have a clean Esperanto locale without skin-specific strings. It took me a while to figure out how to utilize the skin's translation, but I finally figured it out. You do like this:
<?php echo $Skin->T_('String to translate'); ?>

I like how a skin can now carry translations, but for the text "Powered by" you could have used the very simple

<?php echo T_('Powered by'); ?>

Only because that string is already part of the translation packages.

Again though one of the few features in 3.* I like is translatability of skins. This way the designer can (sort of) pick some text not typically part of the package.

EdB wrote:

I like how a skin can now carry translations, but for the text "Powered by" you could have used the very simple

<?php echo T_('Powered by'); ?>

Only because that string is already part of the translation packages.

Yeah, I probably should rewrite how it's done. My skin is actually a ported version of the theme I was using in WordPress, which was just a souped up version of WordPress's Classic theme. It works by using a formatted string rather than simply translating "Powered by" and following it with the app name and app version.

"Powered by" by itself is nowhere in messages.pot in 3.3.1 (maybe it is in CVS; I miss the old days when everyone used CVS and you didn't have to install a thousand version-control systems to participate in projects).

zooplah wrote:

... "Powered by" by itself is nowhere in messages.pot in 3.3.1 ...

Well that's pretty stupid, but then again it actually makes sense. Ever since having a plain old boring html linkback wasn't good enough there is no need for that simple bit of text in the package. Instead your linkbacks are all driven by the database, which in turn gets them from headquarters when you let your back office call home. And when does that happen? Every time you hit an admin page!

spyware generating spammy linkbacks. gotta love it. another reason to not touch v3.* with a ten foot pole :(

EdB wrote:

your linkbacks are all driven by the database, which in turn gets them from headquarters when you let your back office call home. And when does that happen? Every time you hit an admin page!

spyware generating spammy linkbacks. gotta love it. another reason to not touch v3.* with a ten foot pole :(

Wow, I was actually reading [url=http://wonderwinds.com/hackblog.php/2009/04/29/stopping-spyware-from-infecting-your-b2e]a blog post about that[/url] the other day. Why do they do it?