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Localization in WebParts

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Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server doesn't have support of localization in multiple

Languages natively. The document at

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/maintain/spsinatl.mspx#E5F

 

Discusses this situation. It is clearly mentioned that

SharePoint
Portal Server 2003 does not support a mixture of different localized
portal servers on the server farm, nor does it support a mixture of
different localized Windows Server 2003 servers. All servers running
Windows Server 2003 in a farm topology must be in the same language,
and all servers running SharePoint Portal Server 2003 in a server farm
must be in the same language

Still, if you want to perform localization in webparts for whatever reasons, it is simple to do so.

We will create a simple MOSS 2007 webpart with localization support.

 

  • Create a simple class library project and reference to the sharepoint namespace.
  • Create a template of webpart
  • Now we will add a resource file to the project. Choose Add New file from the project menu
    And add a resource file for each of the languages. For example

Healthcare.resx

Healthcare.de.resx for German

Healthcare.fr.resx for French

 

Note that you cannot add App_GlobalResources to the project since it is only valid for the web sites

And not the class library projects.

 

  • Add the following reference to your webpart source file
    using System.Configuration;

using System.Globalization;

using System.Resources;

 

We will pick the language settings from the web.config file. Add the following tag to the

<appsettings> section of the web.config file of your sharepoint web site.

<add key=culture value="de-DE">

 

Add the following class variables to your webpart source file.

CultureInfo cult = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["culture"]);

ResourceManager rm;

 

This will create a CultureInfo object based on the language settings in the web.config file.

 

In the constructor of your webpart add a line like this

rm = new ResourceManager("CustomWebParts.HealthCare", this.GetType().Assembly);

 

Where HealthCare is the name of your resource file ex HealthCare.resx and HealthCare.de.resx

And CustomWebParts is the namespace of your webpart.

 

Basically this line creates a resource manager for the specific resource file.

 

Now we will load all the strings which are used in the webpart source to the resource file.

This is fairly easy.

 

Now to load strings at any point in the webpart source we will use the GetString() method of

ResourceManager class. For Ex

 

protected override void CreateChildControls()

        {

            base.CreateChildControls();

            this.Title = rm.GetString("CarePlan", cult);

        }

 

This method sets the title of the webpart to the appropriate language based on the web.config file

 

The above localization is not specific to sharepoint instead it's an asp.net 2.0 feature.

I can mail the source code of the webpart to anyone if needed.

 

Send your suggestions and comments.

Comments

Forest Ling

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2009
    can u send me the code to sammeta.nsprasad@gmail.com

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2009
    pleaes can you send me source code my email is rajesh_singh81@rediffmail.com

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2009
    Can u please send me the entire source code to my mail ID i.e. urukundappa.g@mphasis.com

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2009
    can u send me the source code my email id is naveensingh222@gmail.com

  • Anonymous
    May 11, 2009
    can you send me source code my email is garg_nirmit@yahoo.co.in

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2009
    Dear Friend, Is it possible to implement a controll, to change language MOSS language. In back end it should load a resource files based on choosen language. Thank in advance (we are ready to pay for this solution)

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2009
    Will this code work for Sharepoint 2003 as well? I am trying to make my custom webpart read the value from appsettings of the web.config. Thanks edwin.mendoza@bmo.com

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2010
    Hi I learnt about localization(static contents) of custom wep-parts using resource file. But now the wuestion is how the dynamic contents ( contents from web services/SQL Databases /Sharepoint lists etc) can be localised on run-time depending on the language selected. Please do let me know any inputs in this regard or any reference links. Thanks in Advance