Motorola MC9090G with Windows CE - user interface language / .net compact

Question

I am developing a windows CE program for the Motorola MC9090G which is running Windows CE 5. The user interface language is set to English (United States) and can't be changed. I've talked with the distributor of the device, but he said there aren't any language packs available.

I've build the application in two languages - English as default and German. The users should run the program in German.

I wonder if there aren't any language packs for Windows CE to download or (if this is not possilbe if there is any way to tell a .net compact program which language to choose).

Any ideas ?

Answer 1

Multi-Language support should be added when the wince image for the device is built (tutorial). Most popular Language packs come pre-installed with Platform Builder from Microsoft. Your OEM should be able to provide you with the firmware you need, if you are unable to build it yourself.

As for your application:

From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x5b31f9d.aspx:

You cannot set current culture programmatically on a device. They are set by the device manufacturer or manually configurable by the device user, such as with Regional Settings on a Pocket PC running Windows CE or Windows CE .NET, current culture settings are on a per-device basis.

So your out of luck here either. You could replace your English resources file with the German one and hope that program would swallow it, but that would be just a quick hack.

Answer 2

I'm not certain what changing the OS language would do for you. it would change the System menus and labels, but it won't change your application. It's up to your application to handle that. If the application should be in German, simnply use that language for all strings.

Answer 3

After finding out that there aren't any language packs - I've translated the whole application somehow similar to this codeproject article

The difference of my solution is explained in my comment.