Multilingual UI Help
The Commerce Server 2009 R2 Desktop Business Tools have Multilingual User Interface-enabled (MUI) user interfaces. This means that you can use the Language Selector tool and make the Business User Application user interfaces display in different languages. The applications make sure that when you press the F1 key to display the user interface help, that the help displayed will match the language of the user interface at that time, if such a localized Help file is present.
Help File Folders
All language versions of the UI Help are stored in files that use the same name (CSUIReferenceClient.CHM). However, they are separated by folders named after the parent culture that they represent. For example English UI Help resides in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 R2 \Desktop Business Tools \EN; French UI Help would be stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 R2 \Business User Applications\FR, and so on.
How the applications select the Help file version
When a business user application start, it retrieves the path of the UI Help file "CSUIReferenceClient.chm". The lookup is performed so as to retrieve the closest culture to System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture. As soon as the path is retrieved, it is cached for the lifetime of the application.
Path look up algorithm
All path lookups are performed relative to System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory. The applications search the subdirectories in the following order:
A directory named the same as System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.Name
A directory named the same as System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture.Parent.Name if the parent culture is not null.
If no localized Help file that matches the Language Selector is found, it displays the first available Help file in any language. If no Help file can be located at all, a HelpLaunchException is thrown.
Supporting New Languages
You can modify the Desktop Business Tools source code and create new UI Help files to match these customized applications, including any new localized versions. You can create a new parent culture-coded folder and insert your custom UI Help file (named CSUIReferenceClient.CHM). Because the Desktop Business Tools detect the culture of the current thread, if the parent culture code matches, the appropriate language version of the help will display.
Limitations
Because the UI Help file path is determined during a business user tool start, you must close and reopen the application for the displayed help language to reset correctly.
See Also
Other Resources
Developing with the Desktop Business Tools Extensibility Kit