Question Specify locale/language for exception messages to user during runtime.

[Gypsy Prince]

I am using VB 2022 with .NET 8 & 9. I develop applications that allow the user to specify which language they want the GUI elements to be displayed in while the application is running - regardless of what language the users' MS Windows profile is set to.

The reason I do this is because some companies (mine included) require all systems to be set to the U.S. English (EN-US) regional/locale settings. This is very easy for me to achieve, even for expected user errors which I can head off. However, unexpected system error messages are always displayed in the English language because the system is set to the English language. Is there any known way to force unexpected error/exception messages to be displayed in a language other than the system's current language?

Try 'Attempt the following block of code.

    '///////////////////////////////////////////////
    ' E X E C U T E   S O M E   C O D E   H E R E !
    '\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Catch e As System.Exception 'Trap any unexpected system error.

    MessageBox.Show(e.HResult.ToString & NewLine & e.Message, MyCaption, MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error) 'Display the error message to the user.

End Try

Even though the user's system is set to the English language, I want to be able to display the message passed in the 'e.Message' member from the codes sample in whatever language the user has specified their GUI to display in during that application's runtime.

Any ideas how to achieve this? This would be an AWESOME feature for moicrosoft to add to future .NET releases.

 

[Gypsy Prince]

I am using VB 2022 with .NET 8 & 9. I develop applications that allow the user to specify which language they want the GUI elements to be displayed in while the application is running - regardless of what language the users' MS Windows profile is set to.

The reason I do this is because some companies (mine included) require all systems to be set to the U.S. English (EN-US) regional/locale settings. This is very easy for me to achieve, even for expected user errors which I can head off. However, unexpected system error messages are always displayed in the English language because the system is set to the English language. Is there any known way to force unexpected error/exception messages to be displayed in a language other than the system's current language?

Try 'Attempt the following block of code.

    '///////////////////////////////////////////////
    ' E X E C U T E   S O M E   C O D E   H E R E !
    '\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Catch e As System.Exception 'Trap any unexpected system error.

    MessageBox.Show(e.HResult.ToString & NewLine & e.Message, MyCaption, MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error) 'Display the error message to the user.

End Try

Even though the user's system is set to the English language, I want to be able to display the message passed in the 'e.Message' member from the codes sample in whatever language the user has specified their GUI to display in during that application's runtime.

Any ideas how to achieve this? This would be an AWESOME feature for moicrosoft to add to future .NET releases.

That was supposed to read: "This would be an AWESOME feature for Microsoft to add to future .NET releases."

 

[jmcilhinney]

Can we assume that this is a WinForms app, based on your MessageBox.Show call? If so then you may be able to set Application.CurrentCulture to control the culture used to generate error messages. That may affect other elements too though, so I'm not sure whether that may be an issue. It's also for the current thread, so exceptions generated on other than the UI thread may not respect that choice. It's something to look into though.