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How to set UWP language on runtime

i'm currently developing a cross-platform App using Xamarin.Forms 3.4 and Visual Studio 2017 (latest version by now).
Since that App should support multiple languages which can be changed on runtime, i'm currently looking into ways to get this done. I already added several resources and translated all interface elements which works just fine. I read through this article to get started:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/app-fundamentals/localization/
For now, when using the UWP app, the language is automatically set to my current system settings, which is the german language, even if the default app language is english. Thats fine.
Now, I got a method which configures my current language by setting several information, like the default CultureInfo object. That method looks like follows:
public void UpdateAppLanguage()
{
CultureInfo ci;
Language l;
// storage is a class containing several persistent information, like
// the language selected by the user to be used
// the Local attribute states if the language is actually present on
// the current user's system
if(Storage.GetCurrentLanguage().Local == true)
{
// language is present locally, so the user wants to use that one for
// the interface
ci = new CultureInfo(Storage.GetCurrentLanguage().Code);
AppResources.Culture = ci;
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture = ci;
CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture = ci;
CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = ci;
CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentUICulture = ci;
DependencyService.Get<ILocalize>().SetLocale(ci); // set the Thread for locale-aware methods
}
else
{
// no preferences available yet, use the system's current ci
if (Device.RuntimePlatform != Device.UWP)
ci = DependencyService.Get<ILocalize>().GetCurrentCultureInfo();
else
ci = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
l = new Language{
Name = ci.EnglishName,
Code = ci.TwoLetterISOLanguageName
};
Storage.SetCurrentLanguage(l);
CultureInfo.CurrentCulture = ci;
CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture = ci;
AppResources.Culture = ci; // set the RESX for resource localization
DependencyService.Get<ILocalize>().SetLocale(ci); // set the Thread for locale-aware methods
}
}
I'm currently testing with a language set, and that language is English.
And here is the dependency service implementation for the UWP sub-project:
public class Localize : stereopoly.ILocalize
{
public void SetLocale (CultureInfo ci)
{
//Windows.Globalization.ApplicationSettings.PrimaryLanguageOverride = ci.Name;
Windows.Globalization.ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride = "EN-US";
Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.Core.ResourceContext.GetForCurrentView().Reset();
Windows.ApplicationModel.Resources.Core.ResourceContext.GetForViewIndependentUse().Reset();
}
public CultureInfo GetCurrentCultureInfo ()
{
return null;
}
}
As you can see, I also tried to set the language to EN-US by force, which doesn't work either. I'm calling the UpdateAppLanguage() method even before the initial Application.InitializeComponent() method runs, I also tried calling it within the OnStart() event method, neither works.
I'd expect the language change getting applied since its executed even before the actual Application starts, but I can switch the several pages of my app as often as I want, the language will always be german, no matter what I do.
I found several answers to this question for plain UWP apps, but not for Xamarin.Forms implementations of UWP projects and that seems to be the problem here, because no other hint regarding pure UWP apps seem to work.
Do you have any idea what might help me?
Thanks.

Make sure you are targeting at least UWP 16299 (FCU), because before that version UWP had issues properly switching languages in debug mode. If you run in Release mode however, it should work normally.
In addition the UWP app needs to know it supports a given language, because this is generated at compile time (using <Resource Language="x-generate"/> in Package.appxmanifest)
You can do this by adding a Strings folder in your UWP project and then adding multiple subfolders - one for each supported language. Finally in each of them add a Resources.resw file (right-click folder, Add > New item..., Resources file (RESW)). The result will look like this.
Then inside each RESW file add some resource. I usually put in AppName, as I often localize it as well:
After this, the app should pick up on the fact that you support the given language and display localized.

I finally found the answer to my problem, it was just as simple as it usually is when it comes to such errors.
It turns out that all bootstrap projects like the UWP, iOS and Android sub-projects also inherit the Assembly Neutral Language from the parent project, no matter what configuration is defined in the specific sub-project (at least thats how it works for UWP). I just noticed that I can set an Assembly Neutral Language within the settings of my .Net main project, and as soon as I did that, all the warnings disappeared and my UWP app ended up showing english text instead of the system default german one. I can also switch back to german now, even though I still have to restart the app to get all frames translated, but thats not that big of a problem, I can work on fixing that up later on. Here's the link that finally got me covered:
Xamarin.Forms: Localization of the UWP app
Thanks for your amazing help anyway :).

Multiple language support in Universal App

This is not a question about standard localization - I know how to localize the app, use resources, Uid's and so on - this works perfectly.
The problem is that the app comes within a bundle, therefore when the user installs the app it covers only languages that are selected in device/phone settings. But I would like to provide an option in settings that would allow choosing a language regarding the settings. For this purpose, I can use ApplicationLanguages.PrimaryLanguageOverride, which works very nice when deployed via VS, but as I've mentioned - version from the store lacks resources, as not all are installed.
Does anybody know how to bypass this bundle behavior?
The problem is also that I'm using MAT (multilingual app toolkit) and my translation comes with xliff files. I've spent quite a lot of time to find a way to convert them to resw files, without success. Is there any way to do it (or I've to write my own converter)?

You need to use ResourceContext:
var context = new ResourceContext(); // deliberately not using getForCurrentView()
context.Languages = new string() {"fr-fr"};
ResourceMap resourceMap = ResourceManager.Current.MainResourceMap.GetSubtree("Resources");
String str = resourceMap.GetValue("string1", context).ValueAsString;
More info at:
'How to load string resources' and
'ResourceContext class'ResourceContext class'.
PS. I have app in store and there is no problem with changing language without reinstall so all resources must be there

Check out this: UWP: Resource file for languages is not deployed correctly you need to get rid of bundle in order for my code from above to work. Or you could check if chosen language is installed in OS and if not you could not allow user to choose it using:
Windows.System.UserProfile.GlobalizationPreferences.Languages

Visio Interop Questions

I have written a console application which uses UDC (universal document convertor) to convert visio diagrams to an image (more specifically a jpeg).
Everything is working fine (for visio files in 2007 and 2010), and I am using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio version 14.0.0.0. I thought I would do a test by creating a visio diagram in Visio 2003 and testing the application. It works fine however, I get the following popup "The Microsoft Visio building plan shapes in this drawing must be updated to function in the current version of Visio". If I click "Yes" then the program works fine. This code will eventually be running as a service and I was wondering if there is anyway to supress these warnings? Or tell it to do any conversion automatically?

We seem to have found the answer (trying nearly every property on the Visio.Application class!):
vApp = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Visio.Application();
vApp.Visible = false;
vApp.Settings.ShowFileOpenWarnings = false;
vApp.EventsEnabled = 0;
It seems the EventsEnabled = 0 did the trick!
Hope this may be useful to someone eventually.. I spent about 4 hours on it :)

You can set vApp.AlertResponse = vbYes, which suppresses the dialog and chooses Yes for you.

C# to format (indent, align) C# properly

We have a code generator that munges the schema of a given database to automate our inhouse n-tier architecture. The output is various C# partial classes, one per file.
In the code to munge all the strings, we try and keep on top of the indenting and formatting as much as possible, but invariably when you come to open the file in Visual Studio the formatting is awry. A quick ctrl-k, ctrl-d fixes it, but obviously this reformatting is lost the next time the class is generated.
What I'd like to know, is if there's a way I can somehow automatically format the contents of the textfile in the same way Visual Studio does?
Pseudocode
Create "code" object, passing text file to constructor
Invoke "format" method
Re-save text file
Any help greatly appreciated.
EDIT:
I should clarify - I want to be able to invoke the formatting from my C# code that creates the textfile containing my generated C#. The format of the code can be standardised (doesn't have to be per-developer), and I don't want to have to install any 3rd-party apps.
I seem to remember there's a namespace containing loads of classes for creating C# in C#: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.codedom(VS.80).aspx, but I'm not sure if it contains any classes that could help.
FURTHER EDIT:
My code generator is a winforms app deployed via a click-once install. It's used by many developers in-house. I need a solution that doesn't require each developer to have a tool installed on their machine.

To properly indent code programmatically you would need Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp nuget package and .NET framework 4.6+. Sample code:
public string ArrangeUsingRoslyn(string csCode) {
var tree = CSharpSyntaxTree.ParseText(csCode);
var root = tree.GetRoot().NormalizeWhitespace();
var ret = root.ToFullString();
return ret;
}
One-liner:
csCode = CSharpSyntaxTree.ParseText(csCode).GetRoot().NormalizeWhitespace().ToFullString();
You may also use NArrange to sort methods in your cs file, organize usings, create regions, etc. Note that NArrange does not indent anything.

Take a look at Narrange.You'll probably need to automate these things as part of the build.
Not sure if it meets all your requirements though.
To quote:
NArrange is a .NET code beautifier
that automatically organizes code
members and elements within .NET
classes.

You can use CodeDOM and the CSharpCodeProvider. It is all in the namespaces Microsoft.CSharp and System.CodeDom.
Her is an example of a property:
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
CSharpCodeProvider provider = new CSharpCodeProvider();
CodeMemberProperty property = new CodeMemberProperty();
property.Type = new CodeTypeReference(typeof(int));
property.Name = "MeaningOfLifeUniverseAndEverything";
property.GetStatements.Add(new CodeMethodReturnStatement(new CodePrimitiveExpression(42)));
provider.GenerateCodeFromMember(property, writer, null);
Console.WriteLine(writer.GetStringBuilder().ToString());
This code will generate:
private int MeaningOfLifeUniverseAndEverything {
get {
return 42;
}
}
The CodeDOM is a quite chatty way to generate code. The good thing is that you can generate multiple languages. Perhaps you can find a Erlang.NET CodeProvider?
You might be able to do a few shortcuts by using CodeSnippetExpression.

Only if you're running the code generator as a VS add-on - each developer is going to have different settings.

Here's how to do it from the context of a macro or add-in:
var dte = (EnvDTE80.DTE2)System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.GetActiveObject("VisualStudio.DTE.8.0");
dte.ExecuteCommand("File.OpenFile", filename);
dte.ExecuteCommand("Edit.FormatDocument", filename);
dte.ActiveDocument.Close(vsSaveChanges.vsSaveChangesYes);
Warning: As #Greg Hurlman says, the output will vary depending on the user's current options.
Edit:
unfortunately your method requires me to have an instance of VS running alongside my winforms app. Can you think of a way to create an instance of VS from within my app (if that's even possible)?
I think it might be possible to do from within your Win.Form app. However, you'll have to have Visual Studio installed on the machine running the code.
Try this:
var dte = (EnvDTE80.DTE2)Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction.CreateObject("VisualStudio.DTE.8.0", "");
dte.ExecuteCommand("File.OpenFile", filename);
dte.ExecuteCommand("Edit.FormatDocument", filename);
dte.ActiveDocument.Close(vsSaveChanges.vsSaveChangesYes);
Keep in mind that you'll need references to the EnvDTE80.dll assembly.

Choosing a folder with .NET 3.5

In a C# .NET 3.5 app (a mix of WinForms and WPF) I want to let the user select a folder to import a load of data from. At the moment, it's using System.Windows.Forms.FolderBrowserDialog but that's a bit lame. Mainly because you can't type the path into it (so you need to map a network drive, instead of typing a UNC path).
I'd like something more like the System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog, but for folders instead of files.
What can I use instead? A WinForms or WPF solution is fine, but I'd prefer not to PInvoke into the Windows API if I can avoid it.

Don't create it yourself! It's been done. You can use FolderBrowserDialogEx -
a re-usable derivative of the built-in FolderBrowserDialog. This one allows you to type in a path, even a UNC path. You can also browse for computers or printers with it. Works just like the built-in FBD, but ... better.
Full Source code. Free. MS-Public license.
Code to use it:
var dlg1 = new Ionic.Utils.FolderBrowserDialogEx();
dlg1.Description = "Select a folder to extract to:";
dlg1.ShowNewFolderButton = true;
dlg1.ShowEditBox = true;
//dlg1.NewStyle = false;
dlg1.SelectedPath = txtExtractDirectory.Text;
dlg1.ShowFullPathInEditBox = true;
dlg1.RootFolder = System.Environment.SpecialFolder.MyComputer;
// Show the FolderBrowserDialog.
DialogResult result = dlg1.ShowDialog();
if (result == DialogResult.OK)
{
txtExtractDirectory.Text = dlg1.SelectedPath;
}

Unfortunately there are no dialogs other than FolderBrowserDialog for folder selection. You need to create this dialog yourself or use PInvoke.

So far, based on the lack of responses to my identical question, I'd assume the answer is to roll your own dialog from scratch.
I've seen things here and there about subclassing the common dialogs from VB6 and I think this might be part of the solution, but I've never seen anything about modifying what the dialog thinks it's selecting. It'd be possible through .NET via PInvoke and some other tricks, but I have yet to see code that does it.
I know it's possible and it's not Vista-specific because Visual Studio has done it since VS 2003.
Here's hoping someone answers either yours or mine!

After hours of searching for a similar solution I found this answer by leetNightShade to a working solution.
There are three things I believe make this solution much better than all the others.
It is simple to use.
It only requires you include two files (which can be combined to one anyway) in your project.
It falls back to the standard FolderBrowserDialog when used on XP or older systems.
The author grants permission to use the code for any purpose you deem fit.
There’s no license as such as you are free to take and do with the code what you will.
Download the code here.