Please make switchdesk use xml-i18n-tools. This will significantly ease, among other things, the translation and translation maintenance of the .desktop file.
Since we have 2 frontends for switchdesk, using xml-i18n-tools in one of them wouldn't make much sense (the other would still need extra translations). Since neither UI uses an xml file, xml-i18n-tools is the wrong tool for the job.
Then use xml-i18n-tools for both of them. If you only use it for .desktop files translation, for example, xml-i18n-tools will only be a compile-time dependency. And xml-i18n-tools is *not* only for XML translation. .desktop files are not XML, yet xml-i18n-tools include logic for making translations of those easier too. This was what I suggested. I never implied switchdesk used XML.
xml-i18n-tools is nowadays called intltool.
I've just been assigned this package and don't have an opinion on the report just yet. I figured I would send out a ping first to see if the issue is still relevant in Red Hat Linux 8.0 or not.
Pong. It's certainly still relevant. The only translations that switchdesk has in /usr/share/applications/redhat-switchdesk.desktop on my RHL 8.0 system are the hard-coded ones, and they're also wrongly encoded. Using intltool would not only fix so that all existing translations are automatically pulled in, it would also fix the encoding.
it's fixed in switchdesk-4.0.0, which is available in rawhide