Working with multiple people on the same .resx resource file

Question

We have a c# program that uses .resx resource files for i18n. We currently have to export the resource files to excel, somebody else makes changes to it, and then inport them again.

Because multiple persons are working on the translations, multiple copies of the same excel file are flying around and it's a real hassle for the developer (who shouldn't bother with correct translations) to get every change in those excel file correctly imported in the project. I would like a way to give other people easy access to (only) these resource files, preferably through some kind of versioning mechanism, so external people can edit them. This way, a developer needn't care for managing them.

Unfortunately, .resx file are xml files which are not as easy to edit as simple excel files, so simply adding version control to them might not be the most user friendly solution.

Answer 1

I think you need Microsoft MAT. you export/import/reuse translations all done in xlf (industry standard file format). It comes with a handy editor also where you can review imported translations add comments or even say that some strings are final (don't need to be translated anymore).

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MultilingualAppToolkit.MultilingualAppToolkit-18308

can be linked with Azure microsoft api to automatically translate text (you have xxxx amount of free translations with that azure api)

Information how to access free translations in Azure with MAT: https://multilingualapptoolkit.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/1167898-microsoft-translator-moves-to-the-azure-portal

Answer 2

You can use any source control software to manage versioning and merging of resource files in the same way as any other files, e.g. code. We're using TFS to do that but you can use any other source control. An important part for you will be merging support if two or more people are editing one file at the same time. As .resx files are really just XML, they are easy to merge.

Also, Visual Studio provides an editor for .resx files which is a bit more friendly than editing the raw xml file.