"Mihai N." <nmihai_year_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9C40E1FF8A5E0MihaiN@207.46.248.16...
I'd like to have multiple projects to be able to share some resources
(e.g.
strings, selected dialog boxes, etc.). I'd also like all resources in
all
projects to be localized. I think I could deal with each task separately
with no problem (ie. either sharing or localizing) but I'm not sure what
the
best practice is to tackle both. The main project shares ~25% of its
resources with other projects, while other projects share even less with
themselves and the main project.
The best practice is a "resource only DLL"
Basically a DLL with resources and no code (created with /noentry)
This is the absolutely minimal "build" process:
rc test.rc
link /noentry /dll test.res
And it is best to have one folder per language, with the folder containing
the dll and (potentially) other localizable elements (templates, help,
etc.)
Then adding a new language is just a matter of adding a new folder, no
code
changes.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/24b2tcy0(VS.80).aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188659
More general about MUI (Multilingual User Interface)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb978454.aspx
--
Mihai Nita [Microsoft MVP, Visual C++]
http://www.mihai-nita.net
------------------------------------------
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Thanks for the reply. Your suggestion will take care of my first task (i.e.
localization) but how do I deal with sharing resources across multiple
projects? Let's say that I have 5 projects that share some resources (e.g.
error messages, prompts, dialog boxes, etc.). From a practical point of
view, what is the best way of dealing with this in VC/MFC environment? Do I
create a single resource DLL that will contain all resources from all
projects and then distribute the same resource DLL with each app? Ideally
I'd like to put shared resources in one place (DLL?) and keep a project
specific resources in a project specific place (DLL?). I did come across
some articles on msdn about sharing resources but they do not take into
account localization. And the opposite is also true: articles about
localization do not deal with sharing resources among multiple projects.
Again, any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bogdan
Is your main goal to share the resources at development time, so that a change to a shared resource before building one project
would also affect the other projects sharing that resource without having to make the same change multiple times? Or is your main
goal to share the resources at runtime so that you don't have duplicated resources being deployed?
Consider that if you are sharing one big DLL with all resources, any time you must make a change to a resource for one project, it
will affect the DLL for all. This may or not be a problem. It would be fewer files to deploy, but it would also mean loading the
bigger DLL at runtime. Again, this may not be a big deal.
Modularization and reuse are both virtues to which you should aspire whether you are talking about code or resource data.