Window Form Localization

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Guest

Hi,
I have developed an application, now want to localize my application
according to regional and language option what user has selected in the OS.
To do this, Do i need to edit each and every label & captions of Form
controls to specific language?. I do not know the equivalent words for the
English text (word) that have used in my form. Is there a tool to convert my
windows from resource file to specific language (like Form1.de-DE.resx for
German (Germany)).
I have checked with Winres.exe tool. It allows to edit not to convert to
specific language

Please Help.

Baskar C.G
 
Baskar,

Basically with win forms what you need to do is to set Localizable to true
as well as to chose the language in the Language property. When you do this
the code in the fom's InitializeComponent will change, so all localizable
properties will be loaded from the resource rather then to be set from code.
VS also will go ahead and create the stelite assemblies with localized
resources for you. Once you pick a lnaguage you need to change text and
captions for the controls. When you are done with one language pick another
one in the Language property and repeat the procedure. I don't think there
is a tool that can do the translation for you. Each language ofcourse has
its own standards for naming buttons and menu items I think these rules can
be found somewhere on the net.
Keep in mind that even there is a programs and/or websites that can help you
translate the words the length of the text usually is different so
localizing requires changing size and positions of controls and some times
that might be to a degree where the whole form needs to be redesigned.
Because of that I don't think there can be automated tool that can do the
localization for you.
 
Bhaskar,

Like Stoitcho said there is no tool to convert the .resx files from one
language to other. Ofcourse there are tools available for language
conversion. Using that you can convert you text and place them in appropriate
Resource Files/
I've done this for localizing the application in Afrikaans language
 
Take a look at Sisulizer
http://www.sisulizer.com/
It makes .NET localization very easy. You either select .NET assembly file
(.exe or .dll), or Visual Studio project files (.csproj or .vbproj) or .NET
resource file (.resx) and Sisulizer extracts items to be translated from the
original files to its project file. The second step is to translate them or
you can sent the project to translator to be translated. The final step is
to let Sisilizer to create localized files (e.g. de\MySample.resources.dll
or MySample.de.resx)

Best regards,
Jaakko
 
As I already said usually translating the words is not enough to localize an
application. Words in different languages have different size (length),
which will require to re-arrange the form or control. Simply translating tha
words is not such big of a problem.
 
This is the situation in many cases. However most localization tools
can be used to rearrange UI layout to make more space for long
translations.

More important is the right UI desing. By designing the UI in the
right way there is hardly no need to do UI layout changes during the
translations project and on those cases localization is almost 100%
string translation. Unfortunately most programmers do not know how to
write proper UI.

Few hints can be see on thse pages:
http://www.sisulizer.com/translation/vcl/delphi.shtml

Best regards,
Jaakko
 
Baskar,

You can also look at Lingobit Localizer
http://www.lingobit.com
Besides translation and form editing it is a tool that makes
collaboration with translators very easy.

Best regards,
Natalya Onuchack
 
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