Re: Overriding default language in single MUI resource file

From:

"David Ching" <dc@remove-this.dcsoft.com>

Newsgroups:

microsoft.public.vc.mfc,microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international

Date:

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:16:13 GMT

Message-ID:

<h%9Qh.4622$u03.3345@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net>

"gary" <gwa000@newsgroups.nospam> wrote in message
news:uUAl3yTdHHA.4172@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

we have an application where we have all of the resources for all of the
languages in a single resource file. we use this resource file via the
standard MFC AfxSetResourceHandle. my understanding is that if we have
English and German in this one resource file than on an English system the
English strings will be displayed. on a German system the German strings
will be displayed.

my question is, is it possible to override this functionality, say with an
INI file, so that on a German system the English resources are displayed.
this would not be dynamic in nature in that a user can change the
localized strings on-the-fly. rather it would be done at install time.
this approach would allow us to use one resource file and let the system
pick the correct strings. however, if the user wanted the language to be
different than the default they could install the program for the
non-standard language (using the SAME resource file) and we would put this
desired language in the INI file.

i know that we could have one resource file for each language and that is
what we had initially. however we are going to be supporting a ton of
languages and we thought the single resource file approach would be
simpler (e.g. less resource language projects in the VC++ solution).

Support for one resource file -> many languages is slowly being deprecated,
and the actual support you actually get in Windows Vista (the worst one)
varies depending on whom you ask.

The language Windows pulls out of the resource file depends on the locale of
the calling thread. So you can do a SetThreadLocale() to specify English,
and your English resources should be used even on German Windows. But no
guarantees there won't be problems with this. Look at Raymond Chen's blog
for a good article on why this is. I agree, this is a nice system and like
other Microsoft decisions, they seem to be willing to sacrifice elegance for
internal goals, and we have to live with it. :-(

-- David