Menu bar localization mod (howto)?

[Byb]

Hi
I found here in the archive how to change (shorten) the menu bar items to make place for more icons.
This works OK, but has unwanted side effects : some common right-click items in menu bar or some applets (e.g.) are switched to english.
Please how to find the full good way to do? Maybe the reason is that the file in the link above is old compared to the current gnome? Or maybe the strings I changed (Applications - Places - System to App - Fav - Sys) are used as references in other fles?
I looked at msgfmt man, but it seems it can't do reverse translation to a human readable txt file.
Thanks for help