Resource Editor .NET

• Download source files - 23 Kb
• Download demo project - 228 Kb

Introduction

I am sure Microsoft thought they were being progressive when they replaced the good ol' .rc file with the XML-based .resX file at the release of Visual Studio.NET. Unlike its predecessor, when you add a resource such as a bitmap to a .NET project through the properties of a Windows form, the actual bitmap binary data is embedded in the associated .resX file. This does not allow update or modification of the bitmap without removing and then adding the bitmap again to the form. Also, you can no longer easily add resources to the assembly not associated with an object managed by the designers. Microsoft includes a sample application which provides a rudimentary resource editor function with Visual Studio.NET, but it also only supports embedding the binary data and does not facilitate easy update of the resources.

The Resource Editor.NET utility is built off this sample application. It generates a .resources or .resX file which can be embedded in any .NET assembly project, and it also saves a .resourcesConfig file which saves the file locations for the resources you added. It currently supports bitmap, icon and string resources. It has saved countless hours during usability testing and language adaptation efforts.

Using the Tool

The Resource Editor .NET allows you to add bitmaps, icons and resource strings to use in your assemblies by making use of the classes in the System.Resources namespace. When you add a named resource, the full path information for the object is retained and saved to a .resourcesConfig XML file with the same name as the .resources or .resX file you specify when saving your work in the editor.  You can then add both files to your project in the Project Explorer. 

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Resources Extension=".resources">
  <Resource Name="ButtonEnglishNormal" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-english.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEnglishDisabled" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-english-na.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEnglishPressed" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-english-on.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEnglishOver" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-english-over.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEspanolNormal" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-espanol.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEspanolDisabled" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-espanol-na.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEspanolPressed" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-espanol-on.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonEspanolOver" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-espanol-over.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonRoundGlassNormal" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-roundglass.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonRoundGlassDisabled" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-roundglass-na.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonRoundGlassPressed" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-roundglass-on.bmp" Value="" />
  <Resource Name="ButtonRoundGlassOver" 
Type="System.Drawing.Bitmap" 
FileName="C:\CodeSubmissions\ResourceEditor.NET\images\bt-roundglass-over.bmp" Value="" />
</Resources>

You can freely rename the resources or change the file specified. When you press Save, the XML file and the chosen .NET resource binary format file is generated. You can also just reopen the file to cause any changes to the referenced bitmap or icon files in the existing locations as specified in the .resourcesConfig have been modified and you want the changes included in the assembly during the next build. All you have to do is add the resulting .resources or .resX file to the project for the assembly you want to embed the resources in.

Using the Tool with Resources Added Through the Forms Designer

Although I don't use this tool for this purpose, you could use it for enabling refresh for bitmaps or icons associated to objects using the forms designer built into Visual Studio .NET.  This requires one extra step.

1. First open the default .resX file created with the form designer to get the resource names into the editor. 
2. Then go through each resource in the editor and re-associate the original file with the resource name assigned by the forms designer.
3. Save the resulting file on top of the original .resX file.

Unfortunately, if you add or remove bitmaps or icons afterwards using the forms designer, you would need to repeat the process to incorporate those changes.  However, you can manipulate the .resourcesConfig XML file with a text editor to get around this.

Using with Visual Studio .NET

The Resource Editor .NET has two modes. The first is the standard UI mode, where you open the application to an empty resource set or with an existing .resourcesConfig file as its first parameter. The second adds the command-line switch /Refresh, which supresses the GUI but will regenerate the .resources or .resX file associated with the .resourcesConfig file. The easiest way to use the tool is to add it as an external tool to Visual Studio .NET. Then when you select the .resourcesConfig file in the Project Explorer, you can either refresh or edit the resources from within the Visual Studio environment. The following two snapshots show how to set the tool up in the IDE.

Adding the Tool for Resource Editing

Adding the Tool for Resource Refresh

Additional Information

• As I mentioned briefly before, you can edit the .resourcesConfig XML file directly in any text editor and then use the Resource Editor .NET to apply the changes. I make extensive use of this in global renames or duplication and rename or resources to speed up the process. In fact, I rarely open the GUI any more unless I am adding one or two resources.
• You can use an graphic image file format supported by the .NET Framework System.Drawing.Bitmap class, you are not restricted to bitmaps.  However, I only tested JPEG and BMP.
• The C# source code is provided, but is not necessary to make use of this tool. However, it does use a PropertyGrid control and shows one way to implement a custom property editor used to capture and save the file's file name. Or perhaps you will want to add some additional functionality on your own.
• You can use a text editor to make minor modifications to the XML file and use it to easily manage culture-specific resources when creating localized applications, such as changing the subdirectory used from ..\en to ..\es to add an English and Spanish culture to the application.
• Due to some quirk the internal resource file name used for the ResourceManager class turns out to be Filename.Resources.AssemblyName to pull resources out of the resource files you add to the assembly. 
• Only string resources use the XML attribute Value in the Resource objects.

History

Initial Release.

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Remove from ResX File Neelam Sanjeev 4:09 8 Aug '07   Hi All, Can anybody tell how can we remove a resource from ResX file on the fly i.e through programmatically. Best Regards Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 3.67/5 (2 votes) Usage for file types? Yaron Shkop 2:34 27 Feb '06   My task is quite simple: I need to add some icons to an assembly and then link them to file types in the registry. The DefaultIcon resgistry key gets the path to the assembly (exe, dll) and then the index to the icon. However, I haven't succeed to cause the icons to be a part of the assembly so a link by an icon index is possible. Any ideas? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink modifying resource files on accident? 20XT6 7:49 22 Dec '05   Mr. Sayles, I downloaded and tested your tool to find out if I experienced the same problem with your resource editor as I do with Mr. Roeder's. It seems that I do. My issue is this: make a copy of a resource file with a bitmap image in it. open the copy with your (or Mr. Roeder's) editor. Do nothing but click "save". Exit out and do a file compare. It appears that every third or fourth line has a modified character (or two) in it. Makes for messy diff. The resulting image does not appear altered. Have you seen anything like this? What could the source of this issue be? Does base64 encoding (my assumption of what type of encoding is used in the resx file) have insignificant bits that are encoded inconsistently? I've been puzzling over this for some time now. Thanks for any insight, Troy Hildebrand Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (1 vote) bad image link in above page idearn 3:15 6 Apr '05   If you look carefully in the above article you will see that the same image is used for both the Edit and Refresh which can be a bit confusing. The real image exists on the server but the link is wrong. The real image is this one: http://www.codeproject.com/cs/miscctrl/resource_editor/VSAddrefresh.jpg[^]"> Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Adding Icons to VB.NET application MstrControl 20:24 15 Feb '05   Greetings! I used your code and it works great. Easy, clean. A little bit buggy, but hey! It was a tool made in a hurry as I gather, right? So it's still 5 stars for me. But... there's always a but... I'm using it to add icons in a VB.NET application and when I create the setup application I'm not able to find the icons I've added in the resource. Any idea? Regards, Paulo Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Adding Icons to VB.NET application DrewManFu 10:07 5 Mar '05   Paulo, I just had the same problem. The reason you're not finding the icons it that they are serialized as bitmaps. The editor loads all images as bitmaps regardless of extension. To get icons to work you'll have to modify the code slightly, and rebuild the editor. Replace lines 37-49 in the file PickImageEditor.cs with the following: openFileDialog1.DefaultExt = "ico"; openFileDialog1.Filter = "Icons (*.ico)|*.ico|Bitmaps (*.bmp)|*.bmp|JPEG Files (*.jpg)|*.jpg|All Files (*.*)|*.*"; openFileDialog1.RestoreDirectory = true; openFileDialog1.Title = "Open an image file"; if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK) { item.FileName = openFileDialog1.FileName; data = item.FileName.EndsWith(".ico") ? (object)new Icon(item.FileName) : (object)new Bitmap( item.FileName ); } Good Luck, Drew Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Invalid file name for image Antonio Barros 4:04 4 Sep '04   Hi When i run your program and open the Demo.resourcesConfig i receive the message "invalid file name for image". What am i doing wrong ? Thank you in advance A.BArros Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Invalid file name for image nicwilliams 2:31 1 Feb '05   You'll need to find/replace the folder within the .resourcesConfig file. It has absolute paths in it, and so your path (where you extracted the zip file) will be different to the authors. Change these over and it will work. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Easy way to add binary resources rasw 14:20 3 Sep '04   If you're just looking for a way to add a binary resource (like a .BMP file) to an executable .NET assembly, use the technique described here: http://www.robert.to/csharp/csharp5.html Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Great stuff... olivierv 3:15 28 May '04   Thanks for putting your work out there- it's going to come in pretty handy. Now all that's left to do is figure out why this wasn't included in .NET Studio to start with. Olivier Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Another editor Gaston 4:42 3 Mar '04   I developed another editor for editing resources, it has similar features: - Edit individual items - Add icons and bitmaps - Source Code available Additionally: - Integrated on Visual Studio 2003 - ImageList editing - Config file is not needed http://weblogs.asp.net/gmilano/archive/2004/03/03/83155.aspx GMilano Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink .NET Resourcer Andre Seibel 13:47 13 Sep '03   http://aisto.com/roeder/dotnet Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: .NET Resourcer krass 4:37 18 Sep '03   IMO Resourcer is muuuuch better than this. krass Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (1 vote) Re: .NET Resourcer Bill Sayles 6:43 18 Sep '03   Good for them. I threw this one together because at the time I found nothing and my graphics department was changing the "look and feel" daily. I appreciate the feedback, but it probably would be some time until I could correct the problems with icons or make any other improvements due to my current workload. This little tool will probably be "unsupported" for now. If another tool supercedes it, I am all for it. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: .NET Resourcer MtnBiknGuy 7:31 24 Nov '03   Give me one reason (or more, if you can) why Resourcer is better. I just looked at both (haven't used either one yet) and my first impression is that Resource Editor .NET looks better. I especially like two things about Resource Editor .NET: 1. the config file and the functionality that comes with it 2. source code is available So far, the score is Resource Editor .NET: 2 Resourcer: 0 Now it's your turn to put some points on the board krass. Regards, Mountain Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink excellent tool - icon not really supported? wurzelchen 22:55 9 Sep '03   first thanks a lot - this will save me a tremendous bit of time. as far as i can see now icons are somehow converted and stored as bitmaps within the tool? ahead the icon related informations seems to be lost on reopening (due to that conversion?) nice feature would be the ability to retrieve a exactly specified icon (size and resolution) from one icon-file/ or perhaps the ability to store complete multi-file icons within the resource-file stefan rieger Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Great article! mattiasnylen 0:50 27 Aug '03   It contained just what I was looking for. It's weird that there's no similar official tool for doing this from Microsoft. Who cares as long as this one exists. I'm looking forward to seeing the app develop further. Mattias Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Saving images? balpo 22:48 6 Jan '03   Is there a way to get all the objects of the .resource file and save them, each as an iindividual bitmap. Supose we know the names of each bitmap (thanks to using your app) and we want to save to my disk whatever.bmp and whoknows.bmp. Is that possible? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (2 votes) Re: Saving images? Bill Sayles 9:49 23 Jan '03   Yes, there is. The file selected in the editor is first manifested as a bitmap object, hence the thumbnail view in the editor. This bitmap can be saved as a physical file of some supported type by the Bitmap.Save() method. I might add that functionality when I get a chance, I just had no need for it. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Saving images? raygilbert 17:56 14 Jul '04   I added the following to export images: private System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat GetImageFormatFromExtension(string imgPath) { string ext = Path.GetExtension(imgPath); ext = ext.ToLower(); if (ext == ".bmp") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp; if (ext == ".emf") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Emf; if (ext == ".gif") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Gif; if (ext == ".ico") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Icon; if (ext == ".jpg" || ext == ".jpeg") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg; if (ext == ".png") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Png; if (ext == ".tif" || ext == ".tiff") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Tiff; if (ext == ".wmf") return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Wmf; return System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp; } private void buttonExport_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { if (propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem != null) { try { string ext = ".bmp"; if (propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem.Value is Icon) { ext = ".ico"; } System.Windows.Forms.SaveFileDialog saveFileDlg = new System.Windows.Forms.SaveFileDialog(); saveFileDlg.FileName = textBoxRename.Text + ext; saveFileDlg.DefaultExt = ext; saveFileDlg.Filter="Image Files(*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF;*.ICO)|*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF;*.ICO|All files (*.*)|*.*" ; if (saveFileDlg.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) { Bitmap bitmap = null; Icon icon = null; if (propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem.Value is Bitmap) { bitmap = (Bitmap)propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem.Value; } else if (propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem.Value is Icon) { icon = (Icon)propertyGridResources.SelectedGridItem.Value; bitmap = icon.ToBitmap(); } else { MessageBox.Show(this, "Can only export Bitmap or Icon Resource", "Resource Editor", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation); return; } if (File.Exists(saveFileDlg.FileName)) { File.Delete(saveFileDlg.FileName); } System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat imgFmt = GetImageFormatFromExtension(saveFileDlg.FileName); if (imgFmt == System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Icon) { if (icon == null) { icon = Icon.FromHandle(bitmap.GetHicon()); } System.IO.FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(saveFileDlg.FileName, FileMode.CreateNew); icon.Save(fileStream); } else { bitmap.Save(saveFileDlg.FileName, imgFmt); } } } catch( Exception ex ) { MessageBox.Show(this, ex.Message, "Resource Editor", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Exclamation); } } } Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Saving images? run1492 23:47 25 Oct '05   Hello, It seems that you have not implemented this "last" change on downloadable code or demo, isn't it ? Thanks ! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Saving images? cplotts 8:15 1 Nov '05   I would agree ... this feature is too valuable to not have as part of your application. In fact, I am completely surprised that other resource editors out there (e.g. Resourcer by Lutz Roeder) don't allow you to save an image from a .resx. It seems as if every Tom, Dick, and Henry would want to do this! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 5.00/5 (1 vote) Thanks! Chad Busche 5:57 5 Dec '02   Just wanted to say thanks. I was looking for a tool that did this, you saved the day. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Thanks! LJMorsillo 4:52 27 Apr '04   Ditto. I needed to add an image to a resource file. Thanks to you and code project within 5 minutes my problem was solved. Sincerely. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink How to add HTML files resource? KS Yuen 15:33 23 Nov '02   I am using a web browser control in a window form. I have a hard time trying to find out how to embed the html files as resource into the project and use the Navigate function of the web browser control to go to the page. Would it be possible to use the resource editor to do it ? Sam Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.50/5 (2 votes)

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