How to pull captions from user-specific Resource Files? - asp.net

Question

I have two Resource files under the app_GlobalResources folder in my Website project, (CaptionsA.resx and CaptionsB.resx), for CustomerA and CustomerB,respectively.
For example, in CaptionsA.resx, I have:
MyButtonText ------> Click me!
And in CaptionsB.resx, I have:
MyButtonText ------> Click Here
I have to use captions on multiple pages in my Website. But, when CustomerA uses the website all the captions from CaptionsA.resx should be visible and when CustomerB uses the website all the captions from CaptionsB.resx should be visible. Keep in mind that both customers use English as the website language, So I can't use the culture/language localization thingy.
What I want to ask is:
How to programmatically tell my website which Resource file to use when?
What to write in my VB.net code?
How to access the Resource File in my code?
If CustomerType = CustomerA
//RETRIEVE DATA FROM CaptionsA.resx (How to do this?)
else If CustomerType = CustomerB
//RETRIEVE DATA FROM CaptionsB.resx (How to do this?)
And what shall I write in the aspx source file?
<asp:Label ID="LblButtonText" runat="server" Text="<%$ Resources:**WHAT-TO-WRITE-HERE?**,MyButtonText %>"></asp:Label>
I have been searching a lot and have tried to find the answer on a gazillion forums, but threads related to this topic were mostly unanswered or were not helpful.

Answer 1

here is how you do it..
Dim resourceFileBaseName As String = "WebApplicationNamespace.app_GlobalResources.CaptionsA"
Dim isCustomerB As Boolean = True
If isCustomerB Then
resourceFileBaseName = "WebApplicationNamespace.app_GlobalResources.CaptionsB"
End If
Dim customerBasedResourceManager = New System.Resources.ResourceManager(resourceFileBaseName, GetType(CaptionsA).Assembly)
Dim resourceManagerField = GetType(CaptionsA).GetField("resourceMan", BindingFlags.[Static] Or BindingFlags.NonPublic)
resourceManagerField.SetValue(Nothing, customerBasedResourceManager)
All ResX files generate an equivalent class (e.g. CaptionsA) which have an underlying ResourceManager which points to the CaptionsA resource containing all the strings. Based on the customer type, we can make this resource manager point to the right underlying resx file. but this Resource Manager is internal to the class, hence we need to reflect and set the value. Also, the CaptionsA and CaptionsB have no relation to each other, otherwise we could have leveraged some pattern/casting to access their members.
what we're doing in the above code is:
set the right resource file base name based on the customer type. (ensure you're using the right namespace path for the classes)
create a custom resourcemanager which points to our actual resx file.
set the CaptionsA class' resourcemanager to our custom one by reflection.
now whenever you try to access a resource, based on the underlying resx it'll access captionsA.resx or CaptionsB.resx.
one thing you'll notice is that you'll be accessing resources of CaptionsB.resx too via CaptionsA class. this is unavoidable and is the closest to the culture based seamless resource access we can get via non-culture based varying resources.
for the fun of it, here is the C# code as well.
string resourceFileBaseName = "WebApplicationNamespace.app_GlobalResources.CaptionsA";
bool isCustomerB = true;
if (isCustomerB)
{
resourceFileBaseName = "WebApplicationNamespace.app_GlobalResources.CaptionsB";
}
var customerBasedResourceManager = new System.Resources.ResourceManager(resourceFileBaseName,
typeof(CaptionsA).Assembly);
var resourceManagerField = typeof(CaptionsA).GetField("resourceMan", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
resourceManagerField.SetValue(null, customerBasedResourceManager);
CaptionsA.MyButtonText will point to the value based on the customer type's resx file.