Localization of Windows Forms in C# with VS.

NET

Introduction
Creating applications that are ready for the international market has become a key tenant
in any application today. The need is to create applications that can cater to various
different countries, cultures as well as reduce the cost of developing and debugging
separate applications for each country. Creating applications that are ready to cater to
different countries of the world is called as Internationalization.

Internationalization has two separate issues, which are often very confusing for developers
to understand. These issues are Globalization and Localization.
In layman’s terms :
Globalization refers to creating applications where the currency format, date format,
numerical system might differ. For example, the currency symbol for USA Dollar is $ while
the currency symbol for UK Pound is £, hence your application supporting globalization
should be able to automatically pickup the correct format from the users operating system
and use it.
Localization refers to creating applications where the screen text, strings, pictures might
differ from language to language. (Please note I am not referring to programming
languages here, but spoken languages! )

In this short article I will cover the creation of a simple “Localized” Windows Forms
application. So as you might have already guessed, it will deal with creating a Windows
Forms application that displays differently in different languages.
Since my knowledge of foreign languages except English is Zero, I will be working with
Hindi (I am not good at typing this too..) and English !!

Prerequisites
1) VS.NET v7.0.9466 (.NET SDK v1.0.3705)
2) Windows 2000 (I guess admin access might be required..).
And please backup your stuff!!
3) Basic understanding of C# and Windows Forms…
4) If you do not have the necessary font's installed on your computer, parts of this article
may look garbled! Only way out is to install the necessary fonts.

Setting-up Windows 2000 to support Hindi Language

One of the good features of Windows 2000 is that you can work with multiple languages
from within the same OS. But by default not all languages get installed (to save space and
startup time..) so you will have to first install the Hindi language fonts if they are not
already installed.

Go to Start menu -> Control Panel -> Regional Options to start the Regional Options
dialog (Figure 1).
 Figure 1: Regional Options Dialog

In the Regional Options dialog's General tab, check if the Indic language is selected; if
not, select it and click OK. This will install the necessary Indian fonts for Hindi, Marathi,
Gujarati, Konkani, Tamil etc. This step might ask you for the Windows 2000 Installation CD,
so keep it handy, and it might also ask for a reboot.

Once the machine reboots and the necessary font’s are installed again start the same
Regional Options dialog, and go to Input Locales tab and click Change. The Text
Services dialog that shows, will allow you to select keyboard settings to use. Click Add to
add a new Keyboard Layout, from the Add Input Language dialog, select Hindi and click
OK.
 Figure 2: Text Services Dialog

Figure 2, shows the Text Services dialog updated after I have added the Hindi keyboard.
Here you can setup the Language Bar, and Key Settings so that you can easily shift
between Hindi and English keyboards, but this is clearly out of the scope of this article, so
explore this stuff yourself.
Also you will find that the Default Input Language dialog let’s you select the default
language for your keyboard. Later in this article I will ask you to shift from English to Hindi
keyboard layout’s, this is the place you do that, I will not be mentioning it again!!

How does .NET Handle Localization??

.NET applications rely on Resource files (*.resx) to deal with Localization. The logic is
simple, every bit of resource like label string, menu string, pictures, error messages,
control size and location, etc are stored in these XML formatted resource files. Hence for
each different language your application will support you create a new resource file and
place the relevant translation (translation to be done by a human translator) of the strings
and pictures into the resource files. At runtime the appropriate resource file is selected and
the resources are used from it to display the necessary UI, making your single application
localized.
.NET follows a consistent naming pattern for resource files so that the correct resource file
is selected. The default resource file is saved as <ClassName>.resx. (Where ClassName is
the name of the class that host’s the Main method to start the application.) Now for other
languages you have to utilize the Culture Name for that language. MSDN documentation
states that, “The culture names follow the RFC 1766 standard in the format
"<languagecode2>-<country/regioncode2>", where <languagecode2> is a lowercase two-
letter code derived from ISO 639-1 and <country/regioncode2> is an uppercase two-letter
code derived from ISO 3166.”
Hence our Hindi resource file will be named <ClassName>.hi.resX. (Where hi is the culture
name for Hindi ).
If you have the VS.NET Documentation installed check out the following link to get a full list
of Culture Names.
[ms-
help://MS.VSCC/MS.MSDNVS/cpref/html/frlrfSystemGlobalizationCultureInfoClassTopic.htm
]

Let’s Kick some Code!

Finally, we start writing our application!! I am assuming that you are familiar with VS.NET,
and so I will not be describing small little steps… The source code is attached, you can refer
to it if you have doubts!

1) Start VS.Net and create a new Windows Application project, call it as

LocalizationDemo.

2) Drag 1 GroupBox, 2 RadioButtons and 1 Button on to the Designer, and make the Form
look like figure 3.

Figure 3: Form Design

4) Now, right-click the LocalizationDemo Project in the Solution Explorer and add a New
Windows Form with the name Form2.cs.
5) Add a Label, PictureBox and a Button on Form2 as shown in figure 4. I have set the
PictureBox to show a custom bitmap (English.bmp) I have created.

Figure 4: Form2 Designer

6) Double-click the Close button in the Designer window so that we can write the
EventHandler for the Click event of the button. In the event handler, we write nothing fancy
but just a simply call the ‘Hide’ method on the form, as shown below.

this.Hide();

7) Switch back to the Form2 Designer window and select the form in the Designer; and
from the Properties window set the Localizable property of this form to true, indicating
that this form supports Localization.

8) While Form2 is selected in the Designer window, from the Properties window, change the
Language property from (default) to Hindi. This will prompt VS.Net to add another
Resource file in the project with the name Form2.hi.resx. (I hope you remember why the
particular naming style is adopted !!).
Please remember that all the changes that you make from here on to the components
property will only get reflected while the user is viewing the application with the culture
Hindi. In case you have added some new controls, you will have to switch back to the
Default Language property of the Form and again make the changes in the default language
also. This way you have to keep switching between the different languages you support in
you applications and make the necessary UI changes to support all the different languages
your application supports.

9) Now time to code in Hindi!! Go to Regional Options and change the default Keyboard to
Hindi (I hope you remember how to do this!!).
10) Many times on English version of VS.NET source code files are saved in Western
European (Windows) - Codepage 1252 format, hence if you try to directly enter
Unicode Characters in Properties window it does not work correctly. Hence switch to code
view for Form2 and then from File menu -> Advanced Save Options dialog change the
Encoding to Unicode (UTF-8 with Signature) - Codepage 65001 and click OK. This
step will ensure that in future the source code file is saved in UTF-8 format.

11) Switch back to Design view and change the Text property of the Label to reflect नमस्ते
(Hello in Hindi) and also change the Font to Mangal. Then change the Text property of
the button to बंद (Close in Hindi). Lastly, I have also changed to PictureBox to show
another picture. The changes shown look like figure 5.

Figure 5: Hindi translation of Form2

And if you are wondering how I wrote नमस्ते and बंद, well with a little bit of practice you
too will get away with it, but I will give it out this time, use the following keystrokes to
make the word:
नमस्ते - vcmdls
बंद – yxo

12) Go back to the Regional Options dialog and re-set the default keyboard to English so
that we can resume with our coding in English! If you forget this step, then you might start
getting varying response from application that are not designed to support Localization!!
You might even have to restart VS.NET, if it still keeps typing in Hindi!

13) Close the Form2 designer, and open the Form1 in the VS.NET designer window. Once
the Form1 is open in the Designer window, double-click on the Start Application button so
that we can write the Event Handler for the Click event of the button.
14) The code snip below is the EventHandler of the Start Application button’s Click event.
Here, depending on which RadioButton is checked, I create an instance of the CultureInfo
class and assign it to the CurrentUICulture property of the current thread.
This will make the necessary switch between the different UI’s.

private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)

{
if( this.radioButton1.Checked )
{
//Get the Default installed culture
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture =
System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InstalledUICulture ;
}
else if( this.radioButton2.Checked )
{
//Get the Hindi culture
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture =
new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("hi") ;
}
Form2 f2 = new Form2();
f2.Show();

14) That’s It !! Build your code and run it, if you followed the steps correctly the application
should build and work correctly!!

Some Improvements
Here is a list of improvements you could make,
1) Currently, I am asking the user to give the language preference every time he runs the
application. It would be a better design if you would ask for the user’s language preference
only once at install time, and then store the language preference into the application
configuration file.
2) This applications takes it for granted that the default language of the user is English, in
your application you should not make this assumption, instead you should build an
additional English (en) resource file separately an not rely on the default resource file.

Conclusion
.NET has provided an extensive platform that support Internationalization. VS.NET
harnesses this and helps you easily create applications supporting Internationalizations.
This article showed you one way of working with Localization through VS.NET.

Saurabh Nandu - 16 June 2002

Your Ratings / Comments

Viewer Ratings/Comments
Rating Description
5 fdsg - ewq on 6/24/2002 10:44:00 AM
Excellent. Your writing skill has definitely improved Saurabh. Very clearly written article -
5
Sai on 7/2/2002 12:54:00 PM
4 Nicely done. - Tokunboh Odusami on 7/14/2002 3:32:00 AM
1 - gb on 8/11/2002 10:07:00 AM
4 Nice demonstration - xi on 9/25/2002 7:50:00 AM
could you please email me with an answer to the following questions if you have them.
FIrstly how do you localise the "canned" dialogs provided in .NET (for example the
Just Comments standard print dialog) Secondly when you distribute your app do you see the installation oif
the ruhntime in the correct language ? cheers Richard - richard bradwell on
10/22/2002 3:51:00 PM
Excellent , funtastic done. One question.... The applcaion as you said requires the support
to hindi language from microsoft. Providing the microsft support just includes installing the
1
fonts. I tried with different fonts, but it doesn't work. Why? - chandan on 10/24/2002
1:27:00 AM
Just Comments no - mohammad on 10/28/2002 9:17:00 AM
Excellent! I used your code to help me in my work. But I have a question. This is possible
to create a form and switch language and not creating a new form each time? Here is my
problem, I created a bilingual application and I add the possibility to switch between
5
english and french. When I click on the button to switch language, it's create a new form.
Do you know how I can display only one form at the time? Thanks! :) - Nathalie on
11/5/2002 11:23:00 AM
4 - Denny on 11/16/2002 8:24:00 AM
This is fantastic article describing every step in detail. Precautions and references are also
5 given. It gives neat example with which nay one can start building. Great - balachandar on
11/20/2002 9:14:00 AM
Not to bad at all. Just wondering is that all there is to it? Are there any other techniques that
4
would be usefull. - Alex Busu on 1/10/2003 10:59:00 PM
How to change the language in the Windows Xp as there is no option like that in the W2K -
3
Zeeshan on 1/23/2003 8:40:00 AM
Your site is the only one I found that explained that I needed to do the translation myself.
Hence knowing multiple languages and changing my keyboard settings etc. Microsoft
5
discussed all the fluff but never said you must hand type your resource files in the language
of choice. Thanks a bunch. - Audean on 1/30/2003 10:40:00 AM
i am font designer who run on linux mangal font - karambir singh Rohilla on
Just Comments
2/11/2003 5:08:00 AM
Just Comments hello - abc on 3/5/2003 2:19:00 PM
5 - ali on 3/29/2003 5:34:00 AM
5 Why sai is maraving you - santy on 5/10/2003 11:16:00 AM
to Nathalie - it is possible to do what you want. See
http://www.devhood.com/tutorials/tutorial_details.aspx?tutorial_id=211 to change language
in current form, I did (as he recommended) 1) you need a resource manager variable in the
form class private ResourceManager m_ResourceManager = new
ResourceManager("TabbedWindow.Form1",
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()); 2) then in the event handler, you
need to set the Culture, and re-get the strings of the particular elements you want to change
5 (I changed some tabs in mine) ex: //Get the French culture
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new
System.Globalization.CultureInfo("fr-FR") ; this.tabPage1.Text =
m_ResourceManager.GetString("tabPage1.Text"); this.tabPage2.Text =
m_ResourceManager.GetString("tabPage2.Text"); this.tabPage3.Text =
m_ResourceManager.GetString("tabPage3.Text"); this.tabPage4.Text =
m_ResourceManager.GetString("tabPage4.Text"); - Todd Harvey on 5/31/2003
7:25:00 PM
Its just excellant. Though I have a question here, how do you manage the database driven
application. Is this conversion meant just for the static fields like labels ,etc not for the user