Is there any visual editor for .resource files

Question

I've generated binary resource (.resources) file with resgen.exe from txt files. Do you know if there is any visual editor for already generated resource file. My case is that software was delivered to the client and he wants to update values in the file.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/resources/creating-resource-files-for-desktop-apps#resources-in-resources-files

Erythrite

They are plain xml files, you can use any xml editor – Fabulist

Of course there are visual editors in visual studios, and there are also free versions of it. But you probably ask of something smaller, not 2 GB to install ? – Ita

@PavelAnikhouski these are binary files and not XML. The generated file has .resource extension, I've tried to open with vscode and it is not displaying content. – Erythrite

Yeah, .resx are XML but .resource are binary versions compiled with resgen.exe. – Moving

Answer 1

Finally I found the tool which allows to edit .resource files, that is Resource.Net. You can find the app by following to the link https://fishcodelib.com/Resource.htm

Erythrite

Another cool VS extension is ResX Resource Manager – Erythrite

One slight problem is that apps have those .resource embedded in the exe, but that editor can't open them directly like that. They need to be extracted first. DnSpy can also show them in the latter. – Moving

AFAICT there's no way to externally override the resources without recompiling, so editing them isn't too useful... unless the app was compiled with /ASSEMBLYLINKRESOURCE which will keep the .resource external (unlike /ASSEMBLYRESOURCE). – Moving

Answer 2

Are you delivering .resx files as plain text with the software? .resx files are compiled to assemblies usually and are not available for direct editing with any tool actually.

Your client have to disassemble assembly, make changes to .resx file and compile it back to assembly again.

You can send plain .resx file to your client, ask them to edit those files (with notepad.exe or any other text editor) and merge client changes back to your sources. Then create a patch and deliver to the client as new version

Damaraland

What I've sent to client is .resource files. please see link below learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/resources/… – Erythrite

please check the link you have provided, there is written After you create the .resources file, you can embed it in a run-time executable or library by including the language compiler's /resource switch, or embed it in a satellite assembly by using Assembly Linker (Al.exe). There is [Serializable] attribute in the sample so .resource files contains binary serialized values I believe. Class definition (assembly) is required to deserialize the Automobile from the binary format. Seems that only you can deserialize .resource files since only you know what was serialized – Damaraland