We must have a concept, the texts of an application are kinds of resource, change the display language is just change the resource we use. For this reason, the following notes are useful for developing a multi-language application.
- Content of different languages are defined in their specified resource file.
- Use index key to retrieve the text in program.
- Set the current language (culture) to get the text with correct language.
Walkthrough: Localizing Windows Forms
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y99d1cd3(v=vs.110).aspx
But the method of the article is just workable in the beginning of application, we still don't know how to change the language at runtime. I have a solution for this issue.
Example: Press the button and change to corresponding language.
Source code:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void BtnChinese_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ChangeLanguage("zh-TW");
}
private void BtnEnglish_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ChangeLanguage("en-US");
}
private void ChangeLanguage(string lang)
{
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(lang);
ComponentResourceManager res = new ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
ChangeLanguage(this, res);
}
private void ChangeLanguage(Control ctrl, ComponentResourceManager res)
{
res.ApplyResources(ctrl, ctrl.Name, Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture);
foreach (Control c in ctrl.Controls)
{
ChangeLanguage(c, res);
}
}
}
}
