No translation for notification mails about user account status change

Hi Drupal !

I'm running Drupal 6.9 with Update Status enabled and all components "current", to build a mockup site for a small NGO active in Africa. Most of our members are strict francophones, and we plan to migrate an existing hand-made site to Drupal to improve our collaboration and communication efficiency.

To ease the approach to the new site, I was hoping that the email inviting the participants to log in would be issued in the person's own language, but this is not the case.

A bit of searching brought up a hint to i18n_variables, further grepping revealed a list of user_mail_*_subject and user_mail_*_body variables to include in settings.php, with the result that the User Settings forms now showed the fields as translatable. But the mails would still be issued in the site's default language.

So I resorted to print and print again, and came to the place where things were meant to happen : _user_maiil_text() in user.module. And cooked a small patch to allow my site's mail to go out translated to the user's preferred language - see attachment.

I don't know if you'll give this patch any consideration, but you should give the issue some. Many people have left messages in various places wondering and complaining that mails couldn't reach their users in the proper language.

Thanks for an otherwise very system.

-ungeek-

The relevant variables at the end of settings.php
--------------------------------------------
$conf['i18n_variables'] = array(
.....
// Different front page for each language
'site_frontpage',
// Primary and secondary links
'menu_primary_links_source',
'menu_secondary_links_source',
// Contact form information
'contact_form_information',
// User settings notifications
'user_mail_register_admin_created_subject',
'user_mail_register_admin_created_body',
'user_mail_register_no_approval_required_subject',
'user_mail_register_no_approval_required_body',
'user_mail_register_pending_approval_subject',
'user_mail_register_pending_approval_body',
'user_mail_status_activated_subject',
'user_mail_status_activated_body',
'user_mail_status_blocked_subject',
'user_mail_status_blocked_body',
'user_mail_status_deleted_subject',
'user_mail_status_deleted_body',
'user_mail_password_reset_subject',
'user_mail_password_reset_body',
// For theme variables, read more below
'theme_settings',
......
--------------------------------------------