intltool is unmaintained nowadays while upstream gettext gained
support for formats like GSettings schemas and .desktop files,
and offers a mechanism to teach it about other XML formats not
yet supported out of the box which we can use for the rest.
So there's nothing stopping us, just make the switch ...
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=769074
A new tool, 'gnome-shell-extension-prefs' can load a new entry point from
extensions, 'prefs.js', which has an entry point to return a GTK+ widget.
This allows extensions to have their own preferences dialog, without each
extension needing to ship its own Python script and .desktop file.
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=668429