As a veteran of building software for multiple languages (with considerable experience with Visual Basic 6), author Nick Symmonds shares his insight about techniques that work best for internationalizing software. Early sections establish guiding principles on how to use "resource bundles" for all graphics and strings in your software. In an interesting early section, the author glances at the very different meanings of certain colors in Western and Eastern cultures, showing the dangers of making easy assumptions about how the visual elements of your software will travel.

Subsequent chapters look at how these string and graphics resources worked in the old Visual Basic 6. Here the author shows off a way to extend the support for multiple resource files in VB6. (Normally, VB6 supports only a single bundle.)

The text then zeros in on the new support for multilingual software in Microsoft's .NET platform, including default support for over a half-dozen calendars and tracking virtually all the world's languages (and dialects) with support for enumerating cultural regions. Most importantly, with .NET you can use XML-based resource files for storing culturally dependent strings and graphics separately. (Of course, based on this infrastructure, it's still up to you to translate your software into multiple languages.)

Techniques are illustrated here with two more substantial projects (in both VB .NET and C#). There's a useful custom resource editor and a hotel-booking application (with support for both English and German users). Final sections round out the discussion with the author's advice for localizing software and some hints for translating program text effectively across cultures, including advice for project management.

The .NET platform works with some 20 computer languages and is sure to be used on even more human languages as software is written for today's global markets. With good reference sections on the relevant .NET classes and APIs that will be needed to develop multilingual software, some effective sample code, and an expert's perspective on doing the job right, this appealingly concise volume will certainly fill a worthwhile niche. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Guidelines for internationalizing software (hints for choosing graphics and colors), overview of resource files, GUI design for multinational applications; introduction to Unicode, Visual Basic 6 resource files (including how to use multiple resource bundles), built-in .NET classes for localizing software (calendars, the CultureInfo class, region, and String classes), .NET reflection and threading for internationalization, tutorial to .NET XML-based resource files; resource editing in the Visual Studio .NET IDE, sample code for a custom resource editor with multilingual support, internationalizing GUIs, case study for a hotel-booking application, security issues with .NET resource files (plus .NET versioning, hints for project management, and outsourcing translation for multilingual software), considerations for installation utilities, and VB .NET and C# code examples.

Product Description

Internationalization and Localization Using Microsoft .NET is intended to be a comprehensive discussion of how to localize code using Visual Studio .NET. Author Nick Symmonds knows the advantages of preparing for localization in the design stage and the disadvantages of localizing a project after the fact, and he discusses both methods of localizing code in this book. All aspects of localization are examined, from handling date, time, and currency and text data, to developing multilingual user interfaces and help files. He also covers Visual Studio's localization features and tools in depth and presents the pros and cons of each to the reader.

Internationalization and Localization Using Microsoft .NET is unique in that it covers both C# and VB .NET&emdash;all examples are presented in both languages. This language-independent approach is essential given that large systems may use both languages, and the principals discussed can be applied to other .NET languages as well. Some of the core topics covered are as follows:

• The Globalization and Resources namespaces, which relate directly to localization
• Resource files and how they are used in .NET
• Visual and command-line tools that aid in localization
• In depth discussion of design and implementation of world-ready programs

Also included is a comprehensive example of a resource editor, with code provided in both C# and VB .NET. This project is not only useful as product in itself, but also instructive in how to write fairly complicated code in both .NET languages.

Buy the book.


A pretty good book, but... (read on!)   February 16, 2002
Michael S. Kaplan
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

DISCLAIMER: I was asked to review this book by a few people who were disappointed that I did not have plans to revise my efforts for .Net in the immediate future. So keep in mind that I am an expert with high expectations, rather than someone who bought the book to learn about the topic.

NOTE: I will call Mr. Symmonds "Nick" in the review but I do not actually know him. It just seemed too odd to be constantly referring to him as "Mr. Symmonds" when he made the effort to so carefully provide such a comfortable writing persona. I hope he will not be offended. :-)

ON TO THE REVIEW:

I have to say that I was quite pleased by the book, which does a good job of explaining much of what it means to produce good international applications with the .Net framework. It has examples and it really covers many important details of the Globalization and Encoding classes that are a part of the new framework, as well as the localization model in Windows Forms (WinForms). Production values are first rate (something I truly envy since there were so many problems with the rush to market for my book!) and examples are both on point and to the point. The subject matter is something that sells itself, and Nick packages things up quite well. His writing style is also solid and does not talk down to the reader at all -- it is that of a colleague telling you something that can literally mean the world to your applications (pun intended).

Not all was perfect, though, so I will spend most of the time here explaining my "gripes"...

There was no CDROM, which for me at least made the "includes a resource editor" blurb a bit less than truthful -- there was no "some assembly required" listed there. This book really needed a CD with it, as people want to be able to try things and test them right away. When you buy the book, prepare to do a lot of typing to keep up with it!

Internationalization gets good attention and examples as I said, but there is a lot less conceptual reasoning behind them than I would have liked. One of the biggest conceptual problems I had there was that the international features were actually designed by the very same NLS team that created the original Win32 APIs, based on all of the good and bad lessons they had learned over the last decade and a half, a point that seems to have been overlooked here (as an occasional "almost" member of that team, I tend to notice such things!). Perhaps if Nick had spent more time talking to the NLS+ team he would have been able to add more of that viewpoint, which would have (in my opinion) really enhanced the book.

He also failed to mention issues such as limitations on Win9x (controls such as WinForms TextBox controls do not support languages not on the default system code page). This is mainly a bad thing for the framework but in a book covering this topic it should have been mentioned, both for the sake of internationalization and for localization into other languages.

The book spent a lot more time on issues surrounding localizability rather than localization proper (which is actually okay, as localizability -- the process of making something that can be localized -- is usually more important to developers), but it completely glossed over *some* important localizability issues such as dealing with issues in different important international markets (example -- no good discussion on GB18030 requirements in China or HKSCS in Hong Kong). Since support for GB18030 is mandated in China and since HKSCS 2.0 support is really needed for Hong Kong but is not currently provided, discussion of them would have been nice.

There is no good discussion on security issues (in light of the last minute, month-long delay of the product's release from Microsoft to do intensive security reviews) is also unfortunate. There *are* internationalization issues that affect security even in .Net (casing and collation can still cause security problems for the unwary even if you are safer from "C/C++" problems like buffer overruns) so the lack of mention of them is unfortunate.

I tend to forgive these points (other than the lack of a CDROM!) since there was no room to cover them -- the book is way too short, in my opinion! I would have liked it to be a lot longer so it had room to cover all those issues, especially with [he]list price (mine was free since I was reviewing, but my recommendation to others has to take price into account). With that said, if Nick revises the book, he must make it longer! I have little doubt that such a revision could contain coverage of these missing topics and thus has a lot of potential to complete the topic's coverage and make for a stellar reference.

In the end, I am forced to give it a 3/5 (though I think it actually deserves a 3.5/5, Amazon does have its limits!). It is DEFINITELY a book worth owning but you will have a lot of work to do -- both as you are reading and after you are done -- if you want to create good globalized software with .Net.


I expected a lot more with that title   March 10, 2002
Jon Rigsby (Newark, NJ USA)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

With a title like "Internationalization and Localization Using Microsoft .Net" I expected a lot more than this really thin book with no CD. One of the big things I was hoping for was information about the new Chinese encoding standard and whether .Net supports it. The government of China requires support and so we needed to know what .Net provides for it. But there was not even a word on how our international application could support it. In the end, I really got more help from the various topics in the MSDN that came with Visual Studio .Net than I did from this book.

I was also hoping for a lot of utilities that could make it easier to work with .Net, but there were none bundled.

On the good side, it was better than the Kaplan book in terms of typos and Mr. Symmonds rambled a lot less, too. And I do have to admit that the writing style was good. I really felt like the author was speaking to me. Unfortunately, after I was done with the mere 350 pages I realized that he was not saying as much as I would have liked.


I hoped for more   June 23, 2002
Jillian Lang (Mountain View, CA USA)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I was given this book by my boss because we were about to work on an internationalized application. She wanted us to consider doing it with Visual Studio .Net.

Unfortunately, it it did not work out that way. I agree with the other reviewers that the writing is quite good, its not that. The problem is that there is so very little there. There are too many things that this book simply does not cover. And this is from an expert?

I am now doing a lot of research: in MSDN, websites, newsgroups, and elsewhere. Things that should have been here in this book. I am really disappointed in APress for not making the author do the work here so I would not have to.


Probably the only .NET loc book. Not recommended.   April 26, 2003
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I have a bit of background in localizaiton engineering and I also wrote a few .NET apps (definitely not a professional level, though). Still I got lost in this book and my time was wasted.

If you really try hard, you may get something out of this book, but you'll still be annoyed by Chapter 3 "Using Multiple Resource Files in VB 6". I thought I bought a .NET book. The casual writing style may also make you feel that the author is looking down on you.

I also have to say that this book often just lists the info in MSDN (classes, methods, one-by-one) If this book got 1000 pages, it MAY be acceptable (NO, in my opinion), but it got 300 pages and lists VB, C# code, tries to show a "full-fledged resource editor" in VB, C#, unnecessary VB6 info, and the general localization concepts. No room for useful information on .NET localization.

This is probably the only book that explains .Net internationalization/localization. This book MAY be helpful, but I recommend you try and only try the docs that come with .NET SDK and VS.NET.

The "About the Author" page shows the authors is a electrical engineer who knows "VB, C++ and now .NET", but doesn't show he has any experience in localizaiton. It makes perfect sense to me.