Question

I have just started writing a multilingual application for the very first time. I have read about the concept of language resource files and I think I get the main idea. I have tried to implement it, and instantly found an issue:

I have entered the default language strings to a resx file, and then added another resource file (for example: UIStrings.en.resx). Since my company is not based in England / other English speaking countries, our applications are primarily written in our language. Thus default language is our language (Slovenian).

When I add the .en.resx file and insert the correct translations and run the program it now displays English text. I figured that is because

CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture = "en-US" 

while

CultureInfo.Currentculture = "sl-SI"

I figure this is because I am running English version of windows (though all the properties in Regional Options are set correctly to Slovenian settings).

How can I make the application display the strings in the users language, not the installed windows language?

Answer 1

I have found out this blog post that answers my question.

If anyone else is struggling with this, here is what you do:

So, if you are using the most common
version of Windows (Englis version),
you are stuck with the “en-US”
culture; hence, your application will
always use your English resource. In
order to mitigate this, you can
perform a little trick at your
application startup. You can mislead
your application to look in your
CurrentCulture property instead of
CurrentUICulture property. At the
application startup, you can write
something like this:

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;

This way, your application will use
your globalization setting instead of
your default windows localization
setting. Your application will be
localized to your globalization
language and culture. If you change
the Regional Settings in your Control
Panel, your application language and
culture will change automatically.