ASP.NET Website and C# with Multi-Language

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Scenarios

In this article, I will guide you how to implement Multi-language into an ASP.NET website using C# and App_GlobalResources files. You can also find the video here Create Multi-language ASP.NET Website.

Step 1

Create a new website project (I’m using VS2012 in this demo).

Step 2

Once your project has been created, you need to add App_GlobalResources folder to your project.

This is an easy action. To create the folder, in Solution Explorer, just right-click the name of your Web site, click Add Folder, and then click App_GlobalResources folder. There can only be one of these folders in an application, and it must be located at the root of the application.

Step 3

After that, right-click on App_GlobalRrsources folder and select Resources File to create new files for additional languages. You can define the name for language files as the pattern “name.language-culture.resx”. In this demo, I will define two files name as chienvh.language.resx (English) and chienvh.language.vi-vn.resx (Vietnamese).

Step 4

Open two resource files to define the name and value (notice leaving the names as a keys as the same in those files).

Step 5

Create a new class file with the name as BasePage.

In this file, you will do the work to initialize the Culture, and then, hence, when creating a new webpage, then in the code-behind of that file, you need to inherit from BasePage instead of default option as System.Web.UI.Page.

Example:

Original: public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page 
Now: public partial class Default : BasePage

Step 6

Create a new webpage with the name as Default.aspx, then open the code behind of this file and change inheritance from System.Web.UI.Page to BasePage.

Step 7

Use asp:Literal control to get data from resource files.

Example:

<asp:Literal ID="Literal3" runat="server" 
Text="<%$Resources:chienvh.language,mnuHome%>"/>

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Threading;
using System.Globalization;
using System;
 
namespace ASPNetMultiLanguage
{
    public class BasePage : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected override void InitializeCulture()
        {
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request["lang"]))
            {
               
			Session["lang"] = Request["lang"];
            }
            string lang = Convert.ToString(Session["lang"]);
            string culture = string.Empty;
            /* // In case, if you want to set vietnamese as default language, then removing this comment
            if(lang.ToLower().CompareTo("vi") == 0 ||string.IsNullOrEmpty(culture))
            {               
				culture = "vi-VN";
            }
             */
            if (lang.ToLower().CompareTo("en") == 0 || string.IsNullOrEmpty(culture))
            {
                culture = "en-US";
            }
            if (lang.ToLower().CompareTo("vi") == 0)
            {               
				culture = "vi-VN";
            }
            Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(culture);
            Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new CultureInfo(culture);
 
            base.InitializeCulture();
        }
    }
}

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace ASPNetMultiLanguage
{
    public partial class Default : BasePage
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            #region--Show/hide language link
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Convert.ToString(Session["lang"])))
            {
                if (Convert.ToString(Session["lang"]) == "en")
                {
                    linkVietnameseLang.Visible = true;
                    linkEnglishLang.Visible = false;
                }
                else
                {
                    linkEnglishLang.Visible = true;
                    linkVietnameseLang.Visible = false;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                linkVietnameseLang.Visible = false;
                linkEnglishLang.Visible = true;
            }
            #endregion--
        }
    }
}

History

• 24^th December, 2013: Initial version
• 23^rd September, 2016: Added video link