Chapter 19. Localization and Globalization

Bienvenue à chapitre dix-neuf! My apologies to those of you who don’t speak French—and also to those who actually do. I took four full years of the language in high school, but for some reason, it didn’t stick. I can still remember a few important sentences, such as «Je suis un garçon» and «Où est le crayon?», but that’s about it. We even read Candide and Le Petit Prince in class, but to no avail. I did take Japanese in college, and found it much easier to digest than French. So, perhaps I should instead say .

In an attempt to expand this book beyond the shores of English-speaking nations, I localized that previous paragraph. In an attempt to expand the appeal of your own applications beyond the English-speaking world, .NET provides features that let you localize your project in another language, even after your software has been compiled and released.

Coverage of all localization features in .NET would include lunar- and emperor reign-based calendars, and right-to-left writing systems. This chapter covers only some of the more common user interface localization features. Hopefully, it will entice you to push the language limits of your own applications, reaching out to les étoiles.

Defining Globalization and Localization

Microsoft has hundreds of for-sale and freely available software applications, and the company makes a lot ...

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