Localization of Syncfusion^® WinUI controls

30 Mar 20266 minutes to read

Localization is the process of making an application multilingual by formatting the content according to the languages. This involves configuring the application for a specific language. For example,
en-US is the language of English spoken in the United States, while en-GB is the language of English spoken in Great Britain. Syncfusion^® WinUI controls can be localized by adding resource files for each language.

Changing application language

The application language can be changed by setting the desired language to the ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride property in the constructor of the main window. Localization can be done while changing the application language by creating a .resw file.

C#

public sealed partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            Microsoft.Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride = "de"; // Works for the both and unpack deployments. 
            this.InitializeComponent();            
        }
    }

You can use the below code for packaged deployments. But in unpackaged deployments, it may cause the app to crash.

C#

public sealed partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride = "de"; // This code works for packaged deployments, but in unpackaged deployments, it may cause the app to crash.
            this.InitializeComponent();
        }
    }

NOTE

We recommend setting the above code before the InitializeComponent method if you have added a .resw file to your project. Otherwise, it may cause the project to crash.

The following screenshot illustrates how the localization is applied to the datagrid based on the defined language to the ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride property.

Creating .resw files

The following steps can be used to generate .resw files for any language:

NOTE

The default resource files of all Syncfusion^® WinUI libraries can be obtained from GitHub.

1) Right-click the project and add a New folder named as “Resources”.

2) Add another folder and name the folder with “language name”. For example, “de” for German language. Find the supported culture codes from here.

3) Add default resource files in the following structure.

NOTE

If the SfDataGrid control is used in the application, copy and paste the Syncfusion.Grid.WinUI.resw (SfDataGrid present in the Syncfusion.Grid.WinUI library) file into the application under Resources folder. So, now you know the key names and values of the default strings in the Syncfusion.Grid.WinUI library.

4) Now, the key names from default resource files can be defined and assigned values based on language.

Download demo from GitHub

Editing default language strings

The default string of any control can be changed by adding the default .resw files (from GitHub) to the Resources folder of the application. If the default string is added, Syncfusion^® WinUI controls reads it from the .resw files of the application.

Localizing without using .resw files

You can localize the WinUI controls using the Provider property of the LocalizationProvider class.

To implement localization of Syncfusion WinUI controls without using .resw files and using custom string. Follow the steps below.

Implementation in sample:

The following procedure that helps to localize in WinUI using String Provider

Step 1: Include the required namespace using Syncfusion.UI.Xaml.Core; at the beginning of the file.

Step 2: Create a class that implements the ILocalizationProvider interface defined in the Syncfusion.UI.Xaml.Core namespace in the Syncfusion.Core.WinUI.dll

Step 3: In a GetLocalizedString method, return Custom string value for a localizable key

If the same key name exists in two different assemblies, you can retrieve the specific assembly’s name along with the key to update the custom string for that key from the desired assembly by using ResourceAssemblyName

Step 4: Return null for the rest of the localizable keys that are not involved in the localization. These keys are loaded with a resource map if available, else it falls back to the default resource map.

Step 5: Assign the instance to the Provider property of the LocalizationProvider class, before the InitializeComponent call in the constructor of the application.

C#

LocalizationProvider.Provider = new MyStringLoader();

The following code example is a reference to assign Localization string to DataGrid Control in WinUI without using .resw

C#

using Syncfusion.UI.Xaml.Core;

public class MyStringLoader : ILocalizationProvider
{
    public string GetLocalizedString(LocalizationInfo info) 
    {
        if (info.ResourceAssemblyName == "Syncfusion.Grid.WinUI" && info.ResourceName == " SortDateDescending ")
        {
            return "CustomText";
        }

        switch (info.ResourceName)
        {
            case "AddNewRowText": // resource key from Syncfusion.Grid.WinUI assembly 
                return "CustomText1"; 
            case "Automatic":   // resource key from Syncfusion.Editors.WinU assembly
                return "CustomText2";
            default:
                return null; 
        }
    }
}

C#

public partial class App : Application
{
    public App()
    {
        LocalizationProvider.Provider = new MyStringLoader();
        this.InitializeComponent();
    }
}

NOTE

Using Provider (highest priority, overrides everything) - Uses your own implemented method for localization. Using a resource map (fallback option) - Uses your own created resource file. This file contains a table with keys values where we can set our own values.