Resource Files not being Compiled into DLLs

Question

I have a localized WinForms application. To avoid a large number of iterations in the translation procedure, I have given our translators software to allow them to edit the .resx files directly.

This has worked great for the resource files that are not tied to UI components (Forms/Controls), but for forms and Controls the resources don't seem to be getting updated. What I mean by this, is that at design-time all resource strings are correct (Text/ToolTips et al.) and I can see the correct translations - when I run the application (debug or any other release) the translations are not being updated, why?

Thanks for your time.

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Edit1. The plot thickens further. There are two buttons that are not being updated at all when I change their components (button text, tooltip or any thing governed by the underlying resource file). Lets say I change the button text from 'Lock Workbook' to 'Lock Workbook GG', then the new text shows in the designer and the .resx files (both in the .resx designer and the code behind) but when I run the code (in debug or release mode) the button text is not updated!?

If I update the button next to the button I updated above, this does change the text in the running application?? This is baking my noodle as I fail to see where the old text is being stored and why for a sub-set of buttons their component text is not getting updated!?

Any ideas are warmly welcomed!

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Edit2. I have tried to delete the .suo and clean and recompile. I have also removed the troublesome form from the solution and re added it.

So that you can see this strange behavior, here is one of the problematic buttons ('Lock Workbook GG') and a normal one ('Set as Default Workbook GG').

Now at run-time I see

Answer 1

Maybe your build settings are wrong?
This is what I have for my dll.

Answer 2

I have given our translators software to allow them to edit the .resx files directly

That certainly was not a good idea. Any professional translator will know how to tackle .NET resx files. Even if they don't have any of the tooling that's traditionally used by translators, like SDL Passolo, then they would still fall back to the standard Winres.exe utility included with the SDK.

Whatever you wrote probably has a bug. Quite hard to reverse-engineer from the question what that bug might be. Other than that the .resx file for a Winforms form is quite different from the one you get from Resource File project template or the resource designer. There are lots of resource naming tricks to avoid ambiguity between the form's properties and the properties of its controls. Get a name wrong and it won't work right.

Don't write your own, at least ask them to use Winres.exe if necessary. It is free.

Answer 3

The bindings to the button are made in the Designer File of the related form, have you checked whether there are some issues? Try removing the code that sets the ressource and re-add it via the designer.

Answer 4

Probably this has something to do with the CopyLocal property. Please check if these are TRUE for these resource files. If not, set them to true, otherwise, after succesfull compilation, they are not being copied to the output directory.