multilingual wpf application

Question

I have a WPF application (in English) and I would like to let users to select different languages. I have read some possibilities to change languages in runtime applications, but I only want to choose a language during installation time and never change it.

Do you think the fastest and easiest way to do it is developing different versions of the program (changing only text language) and let the user to select one of them during the installation?? Probably to repeat code only changing textbox or labels is not very elegant, but notice that I have the application finished in English and I don´t need to change language at runtime.

Answer 1

You can follow these steps:

1. Creating the resource files

   Add this file StringResources.xaml to Resources directory. Here is an example:

   <ResourceDictionary 
       xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
       xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
        xmlns:system="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib">
   
        <system:String x:Key="close">Close</system:String>
   </ResourceDictionary>
   

   You can create several files, one for each language.

2. Adding the resource (Call this when you start your application)

   private void SetLanguageDictionary()
   {
        ResourceDictionary dict = new ResourceDictionary();
        switch (Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.ToString())
        { 
          case "en-US":
            dict.Source = new Uri("..\\Resources\\StringResources.xaml", UriKind.Relative);
            break;
          case "fr-CA":
            dict.Source = new Uri("..\\Resources\\StringResources.fr-CA.xaml", UriKind.Relative);
            break;
          default :
            dict.Source = new Uri("..\\Resources\\StringResources.xaml",UriKind.Relative);
            break;
        }
        this.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(dict);
   }
   

3. Using the Resource, like this -

   <Button      
      x:Name="btnLogin"
      Click="btnLogin_Click"
      Content="{DynamicResource close}"
      Grid.Row="3"
      Grid.Column="0" 
      Padding="10" />
   

Source: https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/123460/Simplest-Way-to-Implement-Multilingual-WPF-Applica