How to set text to a control from resource file in design time?

Question

I want to know if there exists a way to set a control's Text property from a resource file in design time:

Or this process can only be performed programatically?

Deanndeanna

Do you want to set the text property using a .Resx file that you made yourself or your actual requirement is localization? – Cantrip

The first one, @RezaAghaei. – Deanndeanna

I know to do that programmatically, but I don't how to set the control's Text property in design time. – Deanndeanna

The designer only serializes string for that property. You can not set the Text property to a resource value directly using designer, but you can somehow use an extender to set the resource key for your control at design-time and then use it at run-time. But in general I think using standard Localization mechanisms of windows forms is a better option. – Cantrip

Answer 1

The designer only serializes string for Text property. You can not set the Text property to a resource value directly using designer.

Even if you open the Form1.Designer.cs file and add a line to initialization to set the Text property to a resource value like Resource1.Key1, after first change in designer, the designer replace your code by setting the string value of that resource for Text property.

In general I recommend using standard localization mechanisms of windows forms, using Localizable and Language property of Form.

But if in some reason you want to use your resource file and want to use a designer-based solution, as good option you can create an extender component to set the resource key for your control at design-time and then use it at run-time.

Code for the extender component is at the end of the post.

Usage

Make sure you have a resource file. For example Resources.resx in the properties folder. Also make sure you have some resource key/value in the resource file. For example Key1 with value = "Value1", Key2 with value = "Value2". Then:

1. Put a ControlTextExtender component on your form.
2. Using property grid set the ResourceClassName property of it to the full name of your resource file for example WindowsApplication1.Properties.Resources`
3. Select each control you want to set its Text and using property grid set the value of ResourceKey on controlTextExtender1 property to the resource key that you want.

Then run the application and see the result.

Result

and here is an screenshot of result, and as you see, I even localized Text property of the form this way.

Switch between Cultures at Run-Time

You can switch between cultures at run-time, without need to close and reopen the form simply using:

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("fa");
this.controlTextExtender1.EndInit();

Implementation

Here is a basic implementation of the idea:

[ProvideProperty("ResourceKey", typeof(Control))]
public class ControlTextExtender 
    : Component, System.ComponentModel.IExtenderProvider, ISupportInitialize
{
    private Hashtable Controls;
    public ControlTextExtender() : base() { Controls = new Hashtable(); }

    [Description("Full name of resource class, like YourAppNamespace.Resource1")]
    public string ResourceClassName { get; set; }

    public bool CanExtend(object extendee)
    {
        if (extendee is Control)
            return true;
        return false;
    }

    public string GetResourceKey(Control control)
    {
        return Controls[control] as string;
    }

    public void SetResourceKey(Control control, string key)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(key))
            Controls.Remove(control);
        else
            Controls[control] = key;
    }

    public void BeginInit() { }

    public void EndInit()
    {
        if (DesignMode)
            return;

        var resourceManage = new ResourceManager(this.ResourceClassName, 
                                                 this.GetType().Assembly);
        foreach (Control control in Controls.Keys)
        {
            string value = resourceManage.GetString(Controls[control] as string);
            control.Text = value;
        }
    }
}

Cantrip

This works for controls, but not toolstrip items, datagridview columns and controls embedded in other controls, how do i fix this? – Bakemeier

@Bakemeier If you take a look at the logic of code, you will see that we just provide ResourceKey property for Control objects. That's because we are going to set Text property for them. But if we decide to also extend Component classes like ToolTip, which have different base class than Control, we can not rely on existence of Text property. For DataGridViewColumn types, as far as I know, you can not create an extender component which work also in column collection editor. – Cantrip