Hi there!
Facebook has this unique and clever approach to localization of their site: translators (in their case users that help to translate the site voluntarily) can simply click on the not-yet-translated strings – which are marked with a green bottom border – in their natural context on the site. See http://www.facebook.com/translations/.
Now, if you ever had to deal with the translation of a website, you'll be well aware of how odd and funny some of these translations can be when using tools like poedit where the translator isn't fully aware of the spot the translated string will lated appear in on the website.
Example: Please translate "Home". In German, for instance, the start page of a website would be "Home" while the house you live in is "Heim". Now, you as the translator basically have to guess which context this term is likely to appear in on the website and translate accordingly. Chances are, you're new website on home furniture now translates as "Home-Einrichtung" which sounds ridiculous to any German.
So, my question boils down to:
Do you know any open source PHP projects that work on something like this? I'm basically looking for a framework that allows you to put your internationalized website in "translation mode" and make strings clickable and translatable e.g. through a Javascript modal.
I'm not so much looking for a full-fledged and ready-made solution, but would love to know about similar projects that I can contribute code to.
Thanks in advance!