Code Project; Tools & Code: Edit String Resources Inside Multiple Resource Files In Parallel

Zeta Resource Editor
Click title for source at CodeProject.com…

By Uwe Keim


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This is a small utility application that enables you to edit string resources from multiple different resource files together inside one single data grid.

Background
When translating the resources of a .NET application into other languages, the biggest and most difficult task for me was to translate string resources:

The recommended way (at least what I know) is to create one single .RESX file for every language you want the strings to be translated to. I.e. one “Resources.resx” for neutral/English, one “Resources.de.resx” for German, one “Resources.fr.resx” for French, etc.

Since I had to duplicate the resource keys into each RESX file, I often did not manage to keep the resource keys synchronal among all RESX files.

This is where the idea for this tool came up: Take all RESX files, merge their resource keys and display the resource values side by side in one editable data grid.

How to use the tool
1.) Create your resource files in Visual Studio .NET 2005 as you usually do. Add a resource file for each language you want to support and place them in the “Properties” folder of your project.

Keep the naming schema “Resources.<language>.resx”, e.g. “Resources.fr-ch.resx” for Swiss with French language. The following screenshot is an example for English and German.





2.) Start Zeta Resource Editor and open the resource files. Next, simply start Zeta Resource Editor and open the files you want to edit in parallel.




Opening two resource files and load them into Zeta Resource Editor

3.) Edit the resources and save them

The main window of Zeta Resource Editor

You could either edit the cells in the grid directly by selecting and pressing F2 or, for a better overview, select a cell in the grid and then edit the details in the details view at the bottom of the window.

4.) Save and compile
Finally save the resources in Zeta Resource Editor and compile your solution inside Visual Studio .NET 2005.

Epilog
I must admit that I am not an expert regarding translation/localization/globalization tools.

Doing lots of Internet searches, trying different tools, all of them seems to do their own kind of hand algorithms and behaviors.

But what I wanted was to do it my way, respectively the way that Visual Studio .NET 2005 does it.

The current state of the Tool
Beside small test applications, we did not use the tool extensively.

We developed this tool for the upcoming releases of our applications Zeta Producer version 8 (a windows-based Content Management System) and Zeta Help Desk (a ticket-management system).

Although I think it is ready-to-use, the main reason why I already released it was to give other developers the chance to use it and to provide a lot of feedback to me for improving the application.

So please keep the feedback coming !