Feature Request - Please support external language files (e.g. .lang) for UI translation

[unoya]

Hi XmlNotepad team,

First of all, thank you for this excellent tool.

I’m interested in helping translate XmlNotepad into Traditional Chinese. I have some technical background and can handle the translation itself. However, instead of using embedded .resx resources or requiring recompilation, I would like to suggest a more user-friendly approach to localization:

Proposal

Please consider supporting external, plain-text language files (for example: .lang, .ini, or .json) stored in a specific folder (e.g., /Languages). XmlNotepad can then load the appropriate file at runtime, based on user preference or system locale.

This way:

• Non-developers can easily contribute translations
• Translators don't need to build the source code
• The community can maintain and improve language files independently
• The application becomes more accessible globally

Example

An example .lang file might look like:
File=檔案
Edit=編輯
View=檢視
Tools=工具
Help=說明

If such a system were supported, I’d be happy to create and maintain a Traditional Chinese translation.

Thanks again for considering this idea!

[lovettchris]

Sounds like a great idea, but it would be a lot of work to support this since WinForms projects are really designed to work with .resx files...