Click here to Skip to main content
15,867,453 members
Articles / Programming Languages / C++
Article

Multilingual Application - Change Application Language

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.38/5 (9 votes)
17 Nov 1999 110.3K   1.9K   49   10
Multilingual Application - Change Application Language

Introduction

Developing applications supporting multiple languages has always been a drag. With the possibility of including several languages into the rc file of a project, the problem is not entirely solved: The operating system is used as a base and decides what language your application is working with.

If as example, the resources contain English and German, the application will use the English resources on an American or British Windows system, and German on a German or Swiss (German) Windows version. Other language versions of Windows will use the default language (English in most cases).

This behavior is acceptable in most cases, but can cause some headaches: A French speaking person might prefer the German version of your application, but gets by default the English version. Under Windows NT and Windows 2000, there is a simple way of adding the functionality for switching between languages.

Please note: This will only work under NT 3.51 and Windows 2000. There were some problems using NT 4.0 SP3 (and earlier?) reported, but I could not confirm them.

Step 1.

Add the desired languages to your resources.

resources

Step 2.

Enhance your code as follows:

 // Place this code in InitInstance()
 m_lang = GetProfileInt("General","Language",0);
  if (m_lang == 0) {
    // switch language to english
    ::SetThreadLocale(MAKELCID(MAKELANGID(LANG_ENGLISH,
                       SUBLANG_DEFAULT),SORT_DEFAULT));
  }
  else {
    // switch language to german
    ::SetThreadLocale(MAKELCID(MAKELANGID(LANG_GERMAN,
                       SUBLANG_DEFAULT),SORT_DEFAULT));
  }
  //
  //
  // Add a menu or a toolbar button and attach this method 

  void CLanguageApp::OnLanguageTogglelanguage() 
  {
    if (m_lang == 0) {
      WriteProfileInt("General","Language",1);
    }
    else {
      WriteProfileInt("General","Language",0);
    }
    AfxMessageBox(IDS_RESTART); // tell the user to restart the application
  }

//

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here


Written By
Chief Technology Officer
Switzerland Switzerland
Professional IT developer since 1983. First projects with Cobol, then Pascal, Modula2, C and since Visual C++ 1.0 also with C++ and today C#. Works since 1986 as Consultant, between 1990 and 2008 for Infobrain in Switzerland, from 2008 until 2013 for enValue (also Switzerland) and currently working for Comfone (Bern, Switzerland).

Married, two grown-up daughters, Hobbies : Paragliding, Orienteering, Mountainbiking, Photography

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionI can't use in Russian Pin
coma3232-Dec-07 0:28
coma3232-Dec-07 0:28 
GeneralPlease help Pin
sreejith ss nair18-Sep-05 21:28
sreejith ss nair18-Sep-05 21:28 
QuestionHow about using French Pin
Member 21630821-Aug-05 19:19
Member 21630821-Aug-05 19:19 
AnswerRe: How about using French Pin
Ophir15-Feb-06 10:46
Ophir15-Feb-06 10:46 
GeneralProblem with language=English(USA) Pin
achimschoen24-Apr-05 20:53
professionalachimschoen24-Apr-05 20:53 
GeneralGlobalization using .NET and Oracle 10g Pin
ashit_barot21-Mar-05 18:58
ashit_barot21-Mar-05 18:58 
GeneralMircrosoft advise against this on 2000/XP Pin
Obliterator15-Dec-04 3:42
Obliterator15-Dec-04 3:42 
GeneralUse external language packs instead of DLLs for supporting multilingual Pin
Herman Kwan9-Aug-02 14:14
Herman Kwan9-Aug-02 14:14 
QuestionHow about the Win95/98/ME Pin
sandy16-Oct-01 4:56
sandy16-Oct-01 4:56 
AnswerRe: How about the Win95/98/ME Pin
rudie7-Jan-03 22:36
rudie7-Jan-03 22:36 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.