How I did resource files with WSP builder and SharePoint in a DataFormWebPart

Resource files can be either in a .resources format or a .resx format. Visual Studio works great with .resx files where you can call the resource directly via a static class.

Resx files can be put in 12/Resources like core.resx, but I couldn’t get this to work out of the box.  After some googling and trying out different things, this is my receipt  on how to develop a SharePoint webpart and use resources with XSLT.

Firstly create a folder called Resources in the root of your project, and then add your resx files there.

Then I added a class to handle the lookup of resources

public class ResourceHandler
{
    private static readonly ResourceManager _resourceManager;
    public static readonly ResourceHandler Instance = new ResourceHandler();

    static ResourceHandler()
    {
        if (_resourceManager == null)
        {
            Type type = typeof(FrontResources);
            _resourceManager = new ResourceManager("webparts.front.Resources.FrontResources", type.Assembly);
        }
    }

    public string GetLabel(string key)
    {
        return GetLabel(key, HttpContext.Current);
    }

    public string GetLabel(string key, HttpContext context)
    {
        if(!HasKey(key, context)) return key;
        return _resourceManager.GetString(key, GetCulture(context));
    }

    public bool HasKey(string key, HttpContext context)
    {
        ResourceSet rs = _resourceManager.GetResourceSet(GetCulture(context), true, true);
        IDictionaryEnumerator ide = rs.GetEnumerator();
        while (ide.MoveNext())
        {
            if (ide.Key.Equals(key)) return true;
        }
        return false;
    }
 
    private CultureInfo GetCulture(HttpContext context)
    {
        if (context.Request.UserLanguages.Length > 0)
        {
            try
            {
                return new CultureInfo(context.Request.UserLanguages[0]);
            }
            catch (ArgumentException)
            {
                return CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture;
            }
        }
        return CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture;
    }
}

The HasKey function was added due to the XSLT failing if accessing a key which wasn’t present, even if I try/catch around _resourceManager.GetString.

Inside the DataFormWebPart I override ModifyXsltArgumentList in order to add a namespace for the ResourceHandler in the xslt.

protected override void ModifyXsltArgumentList(ArgumentClassWrapper argList)
{
    argList.AddExtensionObject("http://schemas.company.no/SharePoint/Label", ResourceHandler.Instance);
    base.ModifyXsltArgumentList(argList);
}

And in the xslt you access a resource in the following way:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:front="http://schemas.company.no/SharePoint/Label">
    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

    <xsl:template match="/">
        <xsl:value-of select="front:GetLabel('My_label')" />:
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

When you run WSPBuilder it will automatically pick up the resx files and add them as embedded .resources files in the compiled dll.

Resource Assembly added: nb-NO\webparts.front.resources.dll