Professional Visual Basic® 2008

Chapter 5. Localization

Developers usually build their applications in the English language. Then, as the audience for the application expands, they realize the need to globalize the application. Of course, the ideal is to build the application to handle an international audience right from the start, but in many cases this may not be possible because of the extra work it requires.

With the .NET Framework 3.5, a considerable effort has been made to address the internationalization of .NET applications. Changes to the API, the addition of capabilities to the server controls, and even Visual Studio itself equip you to do the extra work required to bring your application to an international audience. This chapter looks at some of the important items to consider when building your applications for the world.

Cultures and Regions

As an example, the ASP.NET page that is pulled up in an end user's browser runs under a specific culture and region setting. When building an ASP.NET application or page, the defined culture in which it runs is dependent upon a culture and region setting specified either in the server in which the application is run or in a setting applied by the client (the end user). By default, ASP.NET runs under a culture setting defined by the server.

The world is made up of a multitude of cultures, each of which has a language and a set of defined ways in which it views and consumes numbers, uses currencies, sorts alphabetically, and so on. The .NET Framework defines cultures ...