Building application with different language specified in resource.rc

Question

I never done something like this, so this is my first attempt. From reading online different information and tutorials, I can confidently say that I got very confused so I went on my own with this.

What I am trying to achieve is have different build configurations with different languages for the GUI.

My application is Win32 built using Visual Studio 2019.

Steps I tried:

Cloned my existing Release build
Opened up my .rc file in Notepad++ and cloned the "default" language sections
Changed the language macro in the cloned sections ( LANGUAGE LANG_VIETNAMESE, SUBLANG_DEFAULT)
Translated everything from Menu, Dialogs, etc.
Reloaded in visual studio, and I can see 2x set of all resources. ( menu, dialogs, everything in 2 sets - 1 english and 1 vietnamese )
Opened up project propierties -> Resources and changed Culture to Vietnamese
Built the project successfully

However the result is nothing. The menu and dialogs are still in English.

Is there something else I must do to specify which set of resources to use to obtain a different language build ?

Or am I over complicating this and going all wrong...

Any advice/examples are much appreciated.

You need to look at where you load resources from the RC file and call `FindResourceExA` with the appropriate language ID https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/win32/api/winbase/nf-winbase-findresourceexa — Richard Critten, Jul 24 '19 at 12:54
@RichardCritten This does seem to be what I need, however I got no clue how to use this properly... — Mecanik, Jul 24 '19 at 13:05
@NorbertBoros [This](https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18/Multilingual-Application-Change-Application-Langua) is an old case. I'm not sure if it will help you. — Strive Sun, Jul 25 '19 at 03:29

Mecanik · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-25T10:20:26.443

It seems I will answer my own question because I believe others have hit this problem as well.

The correct and official way to change the language of a Windows GUI applications is:

SetThreadUILanguage

Using this function, and the exact thing I did in my question; the function will apply the resources in that language at runtime. ( menu, dialogs, everything )

I my case it was as simple as:

SetThreadUILanguage(MAKELANGID(LANG_VIETNAMESE, SUBLANG_VIETNAMESE_VIETNAM));

However in my case I am creating builds per language, so if you want to allow the user to change the language at runtime please see the notes and this article.

The un-official way of doing this is a bit more work, however quite stable and not error prone.

You must translate and rebuild your menu in that language
You must translate and rename each dialog ID per language, and show that dialog ID per language

For the community and other developers, I will share the code to rebuild the menu:

// Find our Menu resource based on desired language
HRSRC hRes = FindResourceExW(hInstance, RT_MENU, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDC_APPLICATION), MAKELANGID(LANG_VIETNAMESE, SUBLANG_VIETNAMESE_VIETNAM));

if (!hRes) {
    wchar_t buf[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
    FormatMessageW(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS, NULL, GetLastError(), MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT), buf, (sizeof(buf) / sizeof(wchar_t)), NULL);
    MessageBoxW(0, buf, _TEXT(L"FindResourceExW Error"), MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);
    return FALSE;
}

// Load our Menu resource based on desired language
HGLOBAL hGlo = LoadResource(hInstance, hRes);

if (!hGlo) {
    wchar_t buf[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
    FormatMessageW(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS, NULL, GetLastError(), MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT), buf, (sizeof(buf) / sizeof(wchar_t)), NULL);
    MessageBoxW(0, buf, _TEXT(L"LoadResource Error"), MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);
    return FALSE;
}

// Lock the resource
LPVOID pData = LockResource(hGlo);

if (pData == NULL) {
    wchar_t buf[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
    FormatMessageW(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS, NULL, GetLastError(), MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT), buf, (sizeof(buf) / sizeof(wchar_t)), NULL);
    MessageBoxW(0, buf, _TEXT(L"LockResource Error"), MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);
    return FALSE;
}

// Load the new Menu into memory
HMENU hMenu = LoadMenuIndirectW((MENUTEMPLATE*)pData);

if (!hMenu) {
    wchar_t buf[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
    FormatMessageW(FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS, NULL, GetLastError(), MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT), buf, (sizeof(buf) / sizeof(wchar_t)), NULL);
    MessageBoxW(0, buf, _TEXT(L"LoadMenuIndirectW Error"), MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);
    return FALSE;
}

// Get our default Menu
HMENU hMenu_old = GetMenu(g_Hwnd);

// Set no Menu
SetMenu(g_Hwnd, NULL);

// Erase default Menu
DestroyMenu(hMenu_old);

// Set our new Menu
SetMenu(g_Hwnd, hMenu);

// Draw our new Menu
DrawMenuBar(g_Hwnd);

NOTE: If you want to use FindResourceEx to search for strings, it's more complicated because of RT_STRING so please see this before you waste your time.

Enjoy!

Building application with different language specified in resource.rc

1 Answers1