Develop Reference

Can I have my form update, in designer, with strings from my resource files?

I'm getting into globalization and localization. I'm aware that I can set the localizable property of my form to true and that I'm able to edit the form for that specific culture. That's great. My question is am I able to, at the designer, load my resx values into their assigned winforms? My goal is to edit the size of my winform assets around the translated languages. This is, obviously, easier if I can see the translations in the designer. Attached is the code that change the text of my buttons at runtime, but my goal is have this take place during the design phase.
buttonTelescopeUp.Text = Resource.TeleUp;
buttonTelescopeDown.Text = Resource.TeleDown;
buttonTelescopeLeft.Text = Resource.TeleLeft;
buttonTelescopeRight.Text = Resource.TeleRight;
Form at runtime
Formin design

Understanding what property changes does Localization = True track in resx files

I have a problem of understanding with localization, hope you can help.
I create a winform app:
add a button
set the form Localizable property to True
set the form Language to Spanish
change the button's Text to "Vamos" and BackColor to "Green".
set the form Language to English
change the button's Text to "Go" and BackColor to "Yellow".
When I swap between Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("es"); and Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en"); the button Text DOES change from "Vamos" to “Go” but the BackColor is always set to “Yellow”.
My deduction is that Localizable = True tracks [control].Text property changes, and other changes such as [control].Location and [control].Size, but it does NOT track [control].BackColor or many other control property changes in the respective resx files.
Is this a bug? Is there a reference document to understand what IS and ISN'T being tracked? I can understand that BackColor is not something that is typically related to a language change but on that basis, size and location shouldn’t be either...so I am not clear on the rationale applied here...
Because of this limitation I am having to make certain localization changes via resx files and others manually via my on logic, feels a bit messy.
Thanks for your help.
[tested in VS 2012 and 2017 with equal behaviour]

A property is considered as localizable if it's decorated with Localizable(true) attribute. For example BackColor property is not localizable, but Text property is localizable.
When the designer generates code for your form, when you have enabled localization for the form, properties which are decorated with the Localizable(true) will be serialized to the resource file of the form. For the rest of the properties, their values will be serialized in code.
For more information and links to how to create multi-language windows forma application, take a look at:
How to make multi language app in winforms

WPF xaml Visual Studio keeps automatically changing pathway to my resource

Having issues using a custom font in a WPF app.
To use the font, I set FontFamily="pack://application:,,,/Resources/#iconfont" on my label. However, whenever I go to edit any of the properties of the label in xaml, Visual Studio is automatically changing the font family pathway to FontFamily="iconfont", and the custom font no longer works. Any way to fix this? A setting I need to change? It's infuriating!
Edit: As long as I'm switching between properties of labels, FontFamily stays the same. But if I go to edit the properties of another type of control, and then come back to the label, FontFamily resets to "iconfont".

For starters let's make life easier and get your clutter cleaner by taking that long pack string and making it a defined resource in your resource dict like app.xaml, window.resources, wherever we can hit it from wherever we need.
So instead of putting FontFamily="pack://application:,,,/Resources/#iconfont" on every single instance it's used (which can be a performance hit by the way) we do;
<FontFamily x:Key="IconFont">
pack://application:,,,/Resources/#iconfont
</FontFamily>
We take that and plop it in your resource dictionary or wherever you want so it's referenced and loaded once from one place and made available to wherever else. Then at your instance you just do;
<Label FontFamily="{StaticResource IconFont}"/>
Now your editor should not only stop screwing with you but you have a cleaner way of maintaining that sucker. I mean imagine if you had to change your path string, or you decide to use a different font pack, would you rather do it on every instance, or in one spot that inherits to everywhere it's used?
Hope this helps, cheers.

Some questions about multi language

Recently, I decided to add 4 languages to my application.
I read about how to do it and I succeed.
But there are two problems/questions I would like to ask.
First question: Is there a better way to change the text of each control instead
private System.Resources.ResourceManager rm;
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("fr");
rm = new System.Resources.ResourceManager(typeof(MainForm));
and then for each control to write this line:
aboutToolStripMenuItem.Text = rm.GetString("aboutToolStripMenuItem.Text");
addTaskToolStripMenuItem.Text = rm.GetString("addTaskToolStripMenuItem.Text");
addTaskToolStripMenuItem1.Text = rm.GetString("addTaskToolStripMenuItem1.Text");
...
Second Question: lets say the text of label1 is "test" and in other language its "testest" then the size of the label will change, which is ok. but If I got label2 that his location is near label1, label1 might be on the top of label2. How can I move the label1 compare with label2 so no matter how long the text in label1 will be, label2's location will be relative to label1. I dont want to use calculations in the program, I want to know if there's other way like property in one of the controls.
EDIT:
after long thinking, I decided to use XML for my multilanguage. this way I can let the people translate it and upload it for me plus I can use it on runtime instead or reload the programs.
About the relative pos of controls I will use FlowLayoutPanel or TableLayoutPanel I will check further which is better.

Satellite assemblies is what you are looking for.
Q1: In VS, set your form's Localizable property to true. Then select the language property accordingly and type your translations in the designer. That way, you simply need to set the thread culture at start-up and .NET will load the correct language for you. No need to add extra code.
Q2: Again, after you selected the language in the designer, just move the controls around: Their new location/size is part of the translation and will be handled automatically by .NET.

It's not a very good idea change the GUI to a different culture while it's running, it's better to say something like you need to restart the application to see changes.
Although if you need to do it, you need to reload all the resources from the new culture (more or less the same than the InitializeComponen does), not only the text, because the location, size and so on, may be changed too. Also you need to change the thread culture in order to the errors, message and the new controls have the correct culture too (to show them in the correct language too).
You can set your application culture with:
CultureInfo appCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("fr");
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = appCulture;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = appCulture;
You need an specific culture to use it on formating and parsing.

In answer to your first question:
If you really want to follow that scheme maybe using Reflection or automatic code generation is an alternative for easier management. I usually write my own GetString method that takes a default english string as an argument (used if no resource can be loaded dynamically for the current language). But I am not sure if it is the best solution either...
In answer to your second question:
In Winforms use a TableLayoutPanel or FlowLayoutPanel or another layout component to relatively position the controls. It is possible to specify if the Label fits to its content (AutoSize) for example or if it shall Dock and if yes with what Alignment. There is nearly no use case that would require a tedious self management or computation.
Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z9w7ek2f(v=VS.100).aspx

Visual Studio Designer is always trying to change my control

I have a somewhat complex UserControl, and Visual Studio 2008 is giving me a rather harmless annoyance when working with it. Every single time I open the control with the Designer, it decides to immediately change some of the harmless values set by the designer - namely the initialization of Size properties. If I save those changes, close, and reopen, it almost invariably ends up deciding another component of my control needs its initial size changed, ad infinitum. Luckily these changes are harmless since I'm using automatic sizing everywhere, but this is quite annoying to work with. I haven't the foggiest on where to start figuring out what's going wrong, my only thought right now is that the Designer is assigning the results of auto-sizing back into the initial size fields every time I open the control. Any ideas on causes/fixes?
Edit: Also, I am using Application Settings to save sizes of certain resizable child components across runs of the application, but I really hope the Designer is smart enough to understand that it should only ever be using the defaults.

Maybe it can help:
I noticed that FormDesigner (no WPF, no Web etc) has a strange behaviour if you insert one custom UserControl.
There is a random change of other controls (GroupBox, EditBox, ComboBox) size (to me happened with width).
The controls choosen to resize seems to be random, but across restarting of vs2010 it is always the same. If deleted and reinserted, the designer chooses a different control do randomly resize...
I changed the property AutoScaleMode of my UserControl from "Font" to "Inherit" and it did not happen again.

You're right, the designer often tries to add default values to properties.
Add this on top of the property declaration:
[DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)]
That will tell the designer to ignore this property.

I have somewhat similar problem. I am using Infragistics GroupBox on a user control which I inherited and now want to change its look and feel in the derived class. I have made it protected in base class -- so it does allow me changing properties in derived class. But it does not save it. Every time I open it -- I get same old values of base class back.
Any idea?
Edit: I figured it out.
Trying various value for one of the above given answers.
Using [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Content)] instead of [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Hidden)] generates code for changed properties - and things work as desired.

Try overriding the DefaultSize property of your control.
From MSDN:
The DefaultSize property represents the Size of the control when it is initially created.