Localizing and Globalization of WinForms applications - winforms

We've developed a WinForms application (targeting .NET 2.0 with VS2008), we've just found out that we need to localize it for use in another language (other than english) :( What are the guidelines for developing multi-lingual languages in .NET?
Another application borrows Paint.NET's idea of globalization (using resources) but I was wondering if there are tools out there than can automate this for us - free would be nice but commercial is OK too.
Any ideas?
How do people normally work on projects that require multi-lingual interfaces? We're talking WiNForms apps. Do you just use IsLocalized = true and let .NET handle it?

You should create assemblies for each language. This article is a good point to start from.
To automate localization process you could use 3rd-party tools, like ResX Localization Studio.

Related

UI development for windows (desktop + web application) and windows CE

I am working on a project where there is requirement of GUI to be created in Silverlight. Some key requirements are:
Extremely rich GUI
Real time visualization process graphics
Support multiple themes
Support different display size
Support charting / trending controls
Same functionality for Desktop / Web using same code base
Same functionality to be available on embedded controller (based on Windows CE)
I understand that using Silverlight we can have same codebase for desktop / web applications. However challenge is to have the Silverlight application (windows and/or web) for Windows CE. I would like to understand what is the best way to implement Silverlight application on Windows CE with as much code reuse as possible.
I would appreciate if you could provide some inputs on what should our architecture approach be for this application development. Also, please let me know if you need more inputs on the requirement side...
"Silverlight" for Windows Embedded (SWE) is a bad name. It's not really what most would call Silverlight. It's simply a XAML-based engine that you can use Blend to develop for. For Windows CE, you must use C++ to develop for SWE. You cannot reuse SWE assemblies in other Silverlight projects. You cannot use other Silverlight assemblies in an SWE project. Your XAML itself will probably have some reusability, but XAML sharing from a code perspective is a challenge in its own right.

Silverlight DLR Support

I have been looking for a list of languages supporting the DLR in silverlight. All I can find at the moment are IronRuby and IronPython.
I have also seen CSScript which is a C# scripting engine, but not sure if it works from within Silverlight (http://www.csscript.net).
Basically, I would like to introduce scripting capabilities to one of my silverlight apps, and I would like to know what options I have of language.
Can anyone suggest other alternatives?
Thanks,
Shane.

Good way for experience WPF developer to learn Silverlight

I'm a developer with WPF experiences, my next project will use Silverlight. I have read some articles on the internet (almost all msdn and silverlight.net) and I think that they aren't much different. Anyway, I still have questions that I'm not sure.
What is different between WPF 4 and Silverlight 4? (I found an article on msdn but its based on .NET framework 3.5)
Are there any resources for learning Silverlight that are good for experience WPF developer?
Do I need a book on Silverlight?
I personally really like the course posted here:
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/
I don't know what you intend to develop using Silverlight. But it's a good start if you like to develop business applications using Silverlight.
WPF has hardware-accelerated full faceted 3D support
WPF has direct access to the full .NET framework
WPF can take full advantage of the hardware on the system.
Silverlight allows you to create a single app that works across browsers, operating systems.
You can use Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 development
For Books, I would recommend Silverlight Recipes and Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook.

A good Silverlight 3.0 reference application, with source?

Having never written a production quality Silverlight app, I am looking to find a quality open source reference application for Silverlight 3.0 (Silverlight 4.0 is no good as I have VS2008) to help learn Silverlight.
Ideally I'd like to see:
a line of business application, in the client-server tradition.
SQL Server back end
no use of 3rd party libraries like PRISM or CSLA as I would like to see how the core Silverlight technologies work.
I realise there are plenty of open source projects on Codeplex, but struggled to find any classic line of business apps there.
This is a really good one:
http://timecard.codeplex.com/
The following does use Prism, but you can learn a lot from it. It even shows localization:
http://happynet.codeplex.com/
In all honesty, get yourself upgraded to VS 2010. If you are serious about becoming a professional in Silverlight development, version 4 has the most bang-for-your-buck.
Not all the newer technologies are supported for Silverlight 3 and all the latest cool tutorials and project examples tend to be in VS2010/SL4.
You also should not ignore patterns like MVVM and libraries like Prism & MEF as they are rapidly becoming commonplace for Silverlight projects. There is more danger of you getting into Win-forms-style bad habits if you use a Win-forms style approach to Silverlight at first.
Here is a simple explanation of MVVM for Silverlight:
http://openlightgroup.net/Blog/tabid/58/EntryId/89/Silverlight-View-Model-Style-An-Overly-Simplified-Explanation.aspx
These videos are a good introduction to creating/understanding Prism-based projects, specifically for Silverlight:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/mtaulty/Prism--Silverlight-Part-1-Taking-Sketched-Code-Towards-Unity/
It includes him building an Outlook-style application using prism (with full source provided).
The codeplex project, full source and documents etc, for Prism and soon MEF is here:
http://compositewpf.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Getting%20Started&referringTitle=Home
Prism was created by Microsoft and will soon have a final release of version 4 (including MEF).

Can you build an entire application in Silverlight?

Is it possible to build a good medium to full sized application using just silverlight as a host?
A few things that would be needed:
- dynamic pages (one silverlight "screen" can switch between screens, like a normal app.
- similar to a java applet which launches from the browser
I see that Telerik sells RadControls for WPF...but this is only useful (to me) if Silverlight can be a rich client platform through the web.
Although still a somewhat immature platform, Silverlight 2.0 supports many of the features that I would expect from a platform needed to create full sized applications.
Data access through web services and local data/object query support with Linq
Many feature rich controls such as datagrid, treeview, etc
A very usable subset of the CLR (common language runtime)
Access to restricted local storage on the client machine
It is cross platform
There are already some great add-ons, like Telerik and the Silverlight Control Toolkit
For your specific scenario, Microsoft has published a tutorial on Multi-page Applications
Absolutely. I've been looking into this and believe that it's as easy to do in Silverlight as it is in any other language. Remember that Silverlight 2 uses C# 3.0 and from that you can build anything that's not included in the Silverlight version of the CLR. Also, the fact that Microsoft gives you access to the .NET source code means that you can compile the missing parts of the .NET libraries with your application. (No idea about the licensing issues with that though.)
I've seen a presentation of a full featured CRM application two days ago. Although it's still alpha: It looks and feels like any office application. I don't know details but for me it's a proof of concept.

Resources