Localization of DisplayNameAttribute

Question

I am looking for a way to localize properties names displayed in a PropertyGrid. The property's name may be "overriden" using the DisplayNameAttribute attribute. Unfortunately attributes can not have non constant expressions. So I can not use strongly typed resources such as:

class Foo
{
   [DisplayAttribute(Resources.MyPropertyNameLocalized)]  // do not compile
   string MyProperty {get; set;}
}

I had a look around and found some suggestion to inherit from DisplayNameAttribute to be able to use resource. I would end up up with code like:

class Foo
{
   [MyLocalizedDisplayAttribute("MyPropertyNameLocalized")] // not strongly typed
   string MyProperty {get; set;}
}

However I lose strongly typed resource benefits which is definitely not a good thing. Then I came across DisplayNameResourceAttribute which may be what I'm looking for. But it's supposed to be in Microsoft.VisualStudio.Modeling.Design namespace and I can't find what reference I am supposed to add for this namespace.

Anybody know if there's a easier way to achieve DisplayName localization in a good way ? or if there is as way to use what Microsoft seems to be using for Visual Studio ?

Answer 1

This is an old question, but I think this is a very common problem, and here is my solution in MVC 3.

Firstly, a T4 template is needed to generate constants to avoid nasty strings. We have a resource file ‘Labels.resx’ holds all the label strings. Therefore the T4 template uses the resource file directly,

<#@ template debug="True" hostspecific="True" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ Assembly Name="C:\Project\trunk\Resources\bin\Development\Resources.dll" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Globalization" #>
<#@ import namespace="System" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Resources" #>
<#
  var resourceStrings = new List<string>();
  var manager = Resources.Labels.ResourceManager;

  IDictionaryEnumerator enumerator = manager.GetResourceSet(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture,  true, true)
                                             .GetEnumerator();
  while (enumerator.MoveNext())
  {
        resourceStrings.Add(enumerator.Key.ToString());
  }
#>     

// This file is generated automatically. Do NOT modify any content inside.

namespace Lib.Const{
        public static class LabelNames{
<#
            foreach (String label in resourceStrings){
#>                    
              public const string <#=label#> =     "<#=label#>";                    
<#
           }    
#>
    }
}

Then, an extension method get created to localize the ‘DisplayName’,

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using Resources;

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{
    public static class ValidationAttributeHelper
    {
        public static ValidationContext LocalizeDisplayName(this ValidationContext    context)
        {
            context.DisplayName = Labels.ResourceManager.GetString(context.DisplayName) ?? context.DisplayName;
            return context;
        }
    }
}

‘DisplayName’ attribute is replaced by ‘DisplayLabel’ attribute in order to read from ‘Labels.resx’ automatically,

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{

    public class DisplayLabelAttribute :System.ComponentModel.DisplayNameAttribute
    {
        private readonly string _propertyLabel;

        public DisplayLabelAttribute(string propertyLabel)
        {
            _propertyLabel = propertyLabel;
        }

        public override string DisplayName
        {
            get
            {
                return _propertyLabel;
            }
        }
    }
}

After all those preparation work, time to touch those default validation attributes. I am using ‘Required’ attribute as an example,

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using Resources;

namespace Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes
{
    public class RequiredAttribute : System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.RequiredAttribute
    {
        public RequiredAttribute()
        {
          ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof (Errors);
          ErrorMessageResourceName = "Required";
        }

        protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value, ValidationContext  validationContext)
        {
            return base.IsValid(value, validationContext.LocalizeDisplayName());
        }

    }
}

Now, We can apply those attributes in our model,

using Web.Extensions.ValidationAttributes;

namespace Web.Areas.Foo.Models
{
    public class Person
    {
        [DisplayLabel(Lib.Const.LabelNames.HowOldAreYou)]
        public int Age { get; set; }

        [Required]
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }
}

By default, property name is used as the key to look up ‘Label.resx’, but if you set it through ‘DisplayLabel’, it will use that instead.

Answer 2

We are doing this for a number of attributes in order to support multiple language. We have taken a similar approach to Microsoft, where they override their base attributes and pass a resource name rather than the actual string. The resource name is then used to perform a lookup in the DLL resources for the actual string to return.

For example:

class LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
{
    private readonly string resourceName;
    public LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute(string resourceName)
        : base()
    {
      this.resourceName = resourceName;
    }

    public override string DisplayName
    {
        get
        {
            return Resources.ResourceManager.GetString(this.resourceName);
        }
    }
}

You can take this a step further when actually using the attribute, and specify your resource names as constants in a static class. That way, you get declarations like.

[LocalizedDisplayName(ResourceStrings.MyPropertyName)]
public string MyProperty
{
  get
  {
    ...
  }
}

Update
ResourceStrings would look something like (note, each string would refer to the name of a resource that specifies the actual string):

public static class ResourceStrings
{
    public const string ForegroundColorDisplayName="ForegroundColorDisplayName";
    public const string FontSizeDisplayName="FontSizeDisplayName";
}

Answer 3

You could use T4 to generate constants. I wrote one:

<#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="true" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ assembly name="System.Xml.dll" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Xml" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Xml.XPath" #>
using System;
using System.ComponentModel;


namespace Bear.Client
{
 /// <summary>
 /// Localized display name attribute
 /// </summary>
 public class LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
 {
  readonly string _resourceName;

  /// <summary>
  /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute"/> class.
  /// </summary>
  /// <param name="resourceName">Name of the resource.</param>
  public LocalizedDisplayNameAttribute(string resourceName)
   : base()
  {
   _resourceName = resourceName;
  }

  /// <summary>
  /// Gets the display name for a property, event, or public void method that takes no arguments stored in this attribute.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value></value>
  /// <returns>
  /// The display name.
  /// </returns>
  public override String DisplayName
  {
   get
   {
    return Resources.ResourceManager.GetString(this._resourceName);
   }
  }
 }

 partial class Constants
 {
  public partial class Resources
  {
  <# 
   var reader = XmlReader.Create(Host.ResolvePath("resources.resx"));
   var document = new XPathDocument(reader);
   var navigator = document.CreateNavigator();
   var dataNav = navigator.Select("/root/data");
   foreach (XPathNavigator item in dataNav)
   {
    var name = item.GetAttribute("name", String.Empty);
  #>
   public const String <#= name#> = "<#= name#>";
  <# } #>
  }
 }
}

Answer 4

Well, the assembly is Microsoft.VisualStudio.Modeling.Sdk.dll. which comes with the Visual Studio SDK (With Visual Studio Integration Package).

But it would be used in pretty much the same way as your attribute; there is no way to use strongly types resources in attributes simply because they are not constant.

Answer 5

Using the Display attribute (from System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations) and the nameof() expression in C# 6, you'll get a localized and strongly typed solution.

[Display(ResourceType = typeof(MyResources), Name = nameof(MyResources.UserName))]
public string UserName { get; set; }

Answer 6

There is the Display attribute from System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations in .NET 4. It works on the MVC 3 PropertyGrid.

[Display(ResourceType = typeof(MyResources), Name = "UserName")]
public string UserName { get; set; }

This looks up a resource named UserName in your MyResources .resx file.