Externalizing the translation of a WinForms application?

Question

I'm working on an application that will be deployed in a lot of different countries, which of course means different languages.

The thing is that I would not translate it myself, nor the other developers. One of the user will translate it and he won't have access to Visual Studio.

The question is, how to do that? Is there a tool available to edit resx files and seeing the text in the context of the application? Moreover, is it possible to add a translation file to the already compiled application?

Answer 1

As food for thought try these links:
Are resx files suitable for internationalization
.NET Resource (.resx file) Translator
Commercial Tool
Good luck

Answer 2

If it's user customizable then Resource files are probably not the best choice, rather have a default scheme and user editable XML files.

If the issue is translators, you could use something like Amazons Mechanical turk service to do the translations for you. https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

It looks like Google has a similar offering: http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/04/google-takes-on-mechanical-turk-with-translation-center/

Answer 3

Take a look at WinRes from Microsoft, it allows third parties to translate/localize your forms through a visual designer.