Visual Basic Concepts

International Issues

If you are planning to distribute your Visual Basic application to an international market, you can reduce the amount of time and code necessary to make your application as functional in its foreign market as it is in its domestic market. This chapter introduces key concepts and definitions for developing international applications with Visual Basic, presents a localization model, and emphasizes the advantages of designing software for an international market.

This chapter also discusses guidelines for writing Visual Basic code that results in a flexible, portable, and truly international application. A section is devoted to writing Visual Basic code that handles the specific aspects of the double-byte character set (DBCS) used on East Asian versions of Windows.

Topics

	International Software Definitions Defines basic terms related to localizing software.
	Designing International Software Explains the advantages of designing software with an international audience in mind and explains the best approach for localizing software.
	Using Resource Files for Localization Describes how to create, localize, and use a resource file for separating localizable information from your code.
	Designing an International-Aware User Interface Shows how to design messages, menus, dialog boxes, icons and bitmaps, and shortcut keys that will be easy to localize.
	General Considerations When Writing International Code Explains some important differences between English and other languages that affect the way you work with strings.
	Writing International Code in Visual Basic Explains how to write Visual Basic code that will work internationally.
	Issues Specific to the Double-Byte Character Set (DBCS) Provides information about working with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian languages.

Sample application

Atm.vbp Some of the code examples in this chapter are taken from the Automated Teller Machine (Atm.vbp) sample which is listed in the directory.