Here's a way to give translators easy access to your sites' po files using ExternalEditor, so that they can open the po file in poEdit or another translation tool.

on the server:

• install ExternalEditor and LocalFS
• add a localfs object somewhere accessible to your translators, pointing to the directory containing the po files. Make sure translators have the usual permissions for external editing - upload, use external editor, use webdav locks etc. (cf ZWiki:QuickReference)
• in the properties tab -> type_map field, add:

    .po text/po File 
  

• allow translators to browse the localfs in the ZMI so they can see the pencil icons, or provide link(s) like .../localfsi18ndir/externalEdit_/somefile.po
• provide a link to the /Control_Panel/PlacelessTranslationService/... form which reloads the po file, or to a suitable script with proxy role

on the translator's machine:

• install [poedit]?
• install ZopeEdit? (the client helper part of ExternalEditor), at least version 0.9
• on windows, copy the file \Program Files\ZopeExternalEditor?\ZopeEdit?.ini to \Documents and Settings\YourUsername?\
• in ~/.zope-external-edit or \Documents and Settings\YourUsername?\ZopeEdit?.ini, add these lines at the end:

    [content-type:text/po]
    extension=.po
    editor = poedit (on windows, use: "\Program Files\poEdit\bin\poedit.exe" or possibly "\Program Files\poEdit\bin\poedit.exe %1")
  

Now when a translator clicks on the external edit link for a po file it should pop up in poedit, when they save or quit it is uploaded back to the site, and when they click the reload button their changes should take effect immediately.

Setup on the translator's machine can be hard. Let's keep discussion of general ExternalEditor issues on that page.