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Choose our own UI language
@crutkas This would most likely be a big work item, since right now we are relying on the default behavior for all 3 platforms (.NET, C++ and UWP). We would need to add custom logic for loading the resources in all the projects (unless there are some convenient APIs for all the platforms to switch languages).
for .net / winrt, there should be. The C++ stuff ... that could be more interesting. Great call out
If we were to change the thread's culture early in the start-up phase, wouldn't that solve the issue?
If we were to change the thread's culture early in the start-up phase, wouldn't that solve the issue?
You mean with restart for lang change?
This "Choose Language" feature would help me in the issue presented in the picture attached. The translated sentence in pt-BR is beyond window limits, and I cannot change the properties.
@carlosmatioli this issue is not about UI fixes for bugs caused by translation. The problem you reported has already been fixed an it will be available in the next release https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/pull/7689
I will delete your comment and mine to keep this thread on topic. Thank.
This is really a good idea. Not only for personal use, but also handy when I want to make a screenshot to show on GitHub. My app is Dutch now and it would be better for other people when I can show something in English, or any language that fits. Plenty of apps can do this on the spot, so no restart of any kind should be necessary.
I think it is a good idea, just hard. Why: the front end techs are not unified. We use MFC, WPF, Winforms, UWP/WinUI, and i think one more.
Each UI framework would have to have a different solution == extremely time consuming until we unify
We use MFC, WPF, Winforms, UWP/WinUI, and i think one more.
I still can't wrap my head around this. It's very confusing and (I suppose) can't be very efficient. In my head GIT always has been the abbreviation for Get It Together. Something Microsoft can't seem to grasp.
@erdostamasa I can see doing the work but I don’t a clear reason for why they would want this to not be their OS choice. This is future work as well and requires other work items to be done first.
@Jay-o-Way we inherited tech techs from other OSS projects. If they use let’s say MFC, for us to migrate is a big undertaking. We know where we want to go (WinUI) but it is missing unpackaged support. So at this time it means we can’t migrate. Upgrading from UI stacks also can introduce a host of bugs so doing it multiple times doesn’t make much sense when we know in the short term, we’ll get to where we need to be.
Rather spend the dev cycles in other parts of code.
we are a small team with great community support. Things take time.
Does that also apply to the whole Windows OS? The UX is an ugly mess. But I digress 🤐
Jay, powertoys respects the OS language setting. This ask is to override that
Jay, powertoys respects the OS language setting. This ask is to override that
@crutkas Hey Clint - what if we were to create a separate .exe file that would contain only the default (English) UI? Then customers could choose this one, or the current one (which defaults to the OS language setting)
@All - would that be sufficient?
@NenoLoje we would not do that style solution, forcing language can be done but it is per UI framework and has other ramifications.
TLDR: Dragons be here so we need to be sure we're doing this correctly. Lots of testing and edge cases.
@erdostamasa I can see doing the work but I don’t a clear reason for why they would want this to not be their OS choice.
Windows Home (at least the OEM's I've used) does not allow you to change language. So unless I get a Pro upgrade, I'd have to buy a laptop outside of my own country in order for my OS to not be in my country's language. However, I'd prefer to have everything in English, as localization just makes it harder to diagnose issues or follow tutorials.
What I mean is, the reason users would want their language to not match their OS's is because Windows does not allow (millions?) of users to change their OS language settings. So it's nice if applications allow the user to choose their language instead of relying on the OS language, which is forced upon the user in these cases (Windows 10 Single Language).
Just found this (havent tried it myself) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43116295/toggleswitch-default-oncontent-offcontent-text-does-not-get-translated-at-runtim
How does this actually work? I have the display language in windows set to english and in windows it works but PowerToys shows the UI in german. Why? What setting do I have to change to get PowerToys shown in english?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/app-resources/localize-strings-ui-manifest#load-a-string-for-a-specific-language-or-other-context
This is based on your OS. We could have an override setting.
YES PLEASE! Override Language would be an awesome feature.
How does this actually work? I have the display language in windows set to english and in windows it works but PowerToys shows the UI in german. Why? What setting do I have to change to get PowerToys shown in english?
Sorry to pile on, but I was wondering exactly the same? What OS lang setting exactly is being used here?
@Jay-o-Way lots of surfaces and UX techs, this is a larger work item
Let's take small steps. Even if it's just a few dialogs that support language override, that's already WAY better than the current state. We could have this behind a feature flag/configuration setting until it's good enough for widespread adoption.