translate the application

[Sxandy]

Thanks for the reply. The problem is that from what I understand, this means that if someone from another country wants to translate the application in his language, he or I will have to recompile something, which I want to avoid.

So, I think the easiest solution will be to use a simple text file that will be loaded in an Array at startup. Like this, it will be very easy for the users to translate the application themselves.

 

[jmcilhinney]

Thanks for the reply. The problem is that from what I understand, this means that if someone from another country wants to translate the application in his language, he or I will have to recompile something, which I want to avoid.

So, I think the easiest solution will be to use a simple text file that will be loaded in an Array at startup. Like this, it will be very easy for the users to translate the application themselves.

It appears that your post has been moved from another thread by a moderator. I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to in your post as a result but it probably doesn't matter. The simple fact is that you don't have to recompile anything to support a new language in your application if you have designed your application correctly to support multiple languages. Designing an application to be able to support multiple cultures is called Globalization and making a globalised application support a specific culture is called Localization. You should do some research on those terms to learn how to implement them but I'll give you the broad strokes here.

Globalising an application involves making the values that might change, e.g. the Text values for Labels, be drawn from resources rather than hard-coded. The resources for your default culture are included in the EXE itself. If you want to support a new culture then you simply create a DLL that contains all the resource values for that culture and put it in the same folder as the EXE. When the application runs, it will check the culture of the system. If the system culture is the default culture for the app then it simply uses the default resources from the EXE. If the system culture is not the default culture for the app then it will look for a DLL for the system culture. If it finds one then it will use the resources that DLL contains, otherwise it will use the default culture resources. You can support new languages even if the app is already deployed, simply by deploying a new DLL.