Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

cbenard — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:57:41 GMT

Michael,

That 70-526 class is over, and I passed the test. Right now, we're training for the 70-536 and the Web Dev one. Our class will continue until May.

I appreciate the in-depth answer, and I'll stick a link to it on our class intranet.

Thanks a ton!

Chris Benard

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Erzengel — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:40:24 GMT

I am really confused by:

"...even if they still want that default user locale setting that affects behavior they really have been accustomed to since for all intensive purposes their zygote phase."

Firstly, whenever someone says "for all intensive purposes" they usually mean "for all intents and purposes". (Like a "Safety Posit Box" or "Safety Deposit Box", when they mean "Safe Deposit Box"). (Come on, you're a language guy, you should know this)

Do you mean something like: "...even if they still want their default user locale setting for behavior set to what they have been accustomed to since--for all intents and purposes--their zygote phase."?

I usually don't pick appart grammar and such, but I couldn't figure out what you meant at all for a good while.

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:53:12 GMT

Hmmm.... given the googlefight results, I think prescriptive grammarians have lost on this one. :-)

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Erzengel — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 02:36:30 GMT

Define "for all intensive purposes" for me.

Just because everyone says it doesn't mean it's right. How many people say "loose" when they mean "lose"? How many people say "it's" when they mean "its"? How many "people" (as defined by the law) said slavery was OK in the early 1800s? How many "people" (as defined by the law) said that women were second class citizens in the early 1800s? Just because "everyone" says it, doesn't make it right.

"For all intensive purposes" means "For purposes which are intensive only. All other purposes are discluded." Therefore, "since their zygote phase" would only apply to "intense" purposes, exceptional cases, rather than general ones. Is this truly what you meant? Or did you in fact mean, "all intents and purposes", which means "all purposes, and all intents".

As a language and internationalization person, you should prefer the CLEARER, rather than the more used, method. The more often used phrase does not make sense to non-native English speakers or persons who have not encountered the phrase. By using an incorrect phrase, you remove any and all clues to your meaning. Is that what you want?

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 02:53:52 GMT

I never said it was right... I was being skeptical about the "confusion" given how widespread and common the mistake is in other places.

My interesting linguistics and internationalization and language do not make me a prescriptive grammarian, so I am not obsessive about such things. So will I make the mistake again? Maybe not. But I don't fix every typo, either.

And I don't think I have removed "any and all clues" to anything, really. HYPERBOLE is a very confusing facet of comments, and often makes me suspect that the commenter either didn't get the point of the article or decided not to read it. But that's not really related...

That phrase is a small piece of a larger article that has nothing to do with the point being made, and there is no way that the importance of that small piece would be misunderstood to be more important no matter what the confusion might be? :-)

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Erzengel — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 03:17:43 GMT

The confusion wasn't about the phrase "for all intensive purposes". I understood what was meant there, that cmment was a throw away correction. Using "intensive" instead of "intents and" only throws away ("any and all") clues to the extent of that single phrase.

I couldn't understand that which was around the phrase. Possibly because I did not understand what a "zygote phase" was. After looking it up, and looking over the sentance several more times, I can somewhat peice together the meaning of the sentance. But the sentance itself (from "even" beyond) comes across as a bit clunky and was hard for me to understand.

To check my understanding, I've rewritten the sentance, and ask if it's correct:

"There are a lot of times when a person is multilingual; they may want to use a different localized version or switch to a different MUI version, if they have it. Even if they do they may want to keep the same behavior of the locale setting they’ve been accustomed to since—for all intentsive purposes[sic]—the zygote phase."

Is that basically what you meant?

I don't know why it's hard for me to understand the sentance, it just was.

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:24:27 GMT

Delete the sentence in your mind as you read. You'll enjoy the experience much more (if not then are probably other blogs you can follow!).

It's time to move back on topic, I think....

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Dean Harding — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 06:17:36 GMT

Actually, the correct google fight URL would be: http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22intensive+purposes%22&word2=%22intents+and+purposes%22 since you're looking for the whole phrase, not just individual words in the phrase...

Which puts "intents and purposes" as 10 times more common than "intensive purposes" :)

Anyway, I'm sure most of us were able to figure out what you mean ;)

windows forms Globalization

Aaron Lerch — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:21:52 GMT

It's amazing how the process of making an application localizable can be both simple and confusing at

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

pealla — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:14:22 GMT

Harking back to an earlier post by Erzengel I agree that the literal translation of "for all intents and purposes" is "for all intents and all purposes" however the phrase is generally accepted to mean "for all practical purposes".

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:43:19 GMT

In the meantime, given the intensity with which some people are arguing this minute point that has nothing to do with the original topic, I would argue that FOR ALL INTENSIVE PURPOSES is actually valid given how intense everyone is! :-)

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

villa rental south of france — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:08:28 GMT

Hi,

I need to fetch the current time zone info on windows 2003 server .. specifically the day and month in french

I know it can be done using

private static extern int GetTimeZoneInformation(out TimeZoneInformation lpTimeZoneInformation);

but my problem is that it returns the time zone standard name in the language which is currently used on the device(like German).

I want it to be in french

Is it possible?

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:57:07 GMT

This really belongs in the Suggestion Box (see the link on the right for it). It really has nothing to do with this post and is a request for a new one....

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Ms. Chanandular Bong — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:54:35 GMT

Hi,

thanks for this very good article. I'm currently estimating the effort needed to make our software localizable and you helped me a lot with understanding the difference between those two properties.

But I encourtered another problem. I tried everything (i think) to get Windows XP to give me another CurrentUILanguage than my non-MUI Windows language (German). Is it possible, that only the MUI-Version supports changing the default user interface language?

Thanks a lot.

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Mike Claymon — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:50:42 GMT

I have a CurrentCulture vs. CurrentUICulture issue and I don't understand how to resolve it. If you could help, I would greatly appreciate it.

I have a Windows XP computer with English installed for the OS and French set in Control Panel/Regional Settings. The CurrentCulture returns English and the CurrentUICulture returns French.

I have a Windows Server 2003 computer with French installed for the OS and French set in Control Panel/Regional Settings. The CurrentCulture returns French and the CurrentUICulture returns English.

As it stands right now, I can't always use either CurrentCulture or CurrentUICulture. How can I make this work?

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

William Garrison — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:08:27 GMT

Absolute proof that the CurrentCulture -vs- CurrentUICulture thing is stupid can be summed-up in the following MSDN article:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.thread.currentuiculture.aspx

Read the example. It says:

"The following code example shows the threading statement that allows the user interface of a Windows Forms to display in the culture that is set in Control Panel. Additional code is needed."

Now why the heck would someone have to add special code to make their application display the UI in the culture set in the control panel? That's absurd.

The code boils down to:

CurrentUICulture = CurrentCulture

Further proof: Install a suite of apps that support German on an English windows. Now, go to Control Panel - Regional and Language - Languages - and set "Language used in menus..." to German. OOPS! It's not there! It only lets you select from the languages that Microsoft has installed language packs for -- COMPLETELY defeating the purpose of the screen. If you have all translated apps installed, but don't have Microsoft's language pack installed, you are forbidden from even selecting your language.

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:27:35 GMT

Hi William.... note that a dumb code sample is not proof of a setting being dumb -- it is proof that people can write dumb code samples and get them published.

But the code is TRYING to make the app use the USER LOCALE, which can be changed even if MUI is not installed, which is a little silly but not stupid -- just poorly described in the article.

The other issue is by design -- Windows UI languages are about WINDOWS. It would be nice if they were extended beyond that but that is not proof they are stupid, that is proof that making an incorrect assumption can lead to incorrect results....

I have no problem calling things stupid when they are, but you are a bit mis-aimed in this case in putting your finger on the actual problems behind the cases you are seeing.

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

William Garrison — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 06:32:20 GMT

"which is a little silly but not stupid"

Perhaps. Sounds like we mainly disagree in the degree of the problem.

"The other issue is by design -- Windows UI languages are about WINDOWS"

Stating that it is by design does not make it correct. The point is that this behavior is not what the users expect, nor what the programmers expect.

The code sample is vindication to all the programmers who spent hours frustrated, when their German application on their machine set to German, displays English. :-)

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:56:04 GMT

When there are two knobs on a radio, one for the volume and one that changes the station, and both USERS and STORE CLERKS are confused because they think there should be only one knob, then the answer is the same.

Now perhaps the radio is designed poorly and that is why everyone thought the one knob should always work for both settings, but that is a UI flaw unrelated to the fact that it is BY DESIGN.... :-)

re: Why we have both CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture

ivl — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:41:53 GMT

Hi Michael,

I just want to confirm that I have understood what the "bottom line" is:

We shouldn't change the following:

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = ...

because we would like to honor the user's "Formats" (Date, Time, Number, Currency) settings in Control Panel.

We should change the following:

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = ...

only if the Windows language pack for the language in which we would like to display the UI of our app in, is not installed.

Does this sound correct?

Mike Claymon's comments are worrying though, why would he be getting such results? Mike, if you're reading, did you resolve your issue? If so, what was wrong?