webforms - ASP.NET meta:resourcekey

Question

I'm looking at an ASP.NET application which makes heavy use of meta:resourcekey which seem to be connected to the resx files.

This is an area that seeems to have completely passed me by. Does anyone have any guidance on the benefits and purpose of this approach and best practices?

Answer 1

The meta:resourcekey syntax allows you use declarative syntax for Implicit Resource expressions. This is used when localizing a site for international use. As the Quickstarts (linked below) explain, these kind of expressions are linked to .resx files located in the App_LocalResources folder.

The benefit of this kind of expression is that it can use multiple properties for a single control which are defined in the .resx file instead of the ASPX itself.

For instance, take the label below:

<asp:Label ID="myLabel" runat="server" Text="This text is localizable" meta:resourcekey="myLabelResource1">
</asp:Label>

The resx file for this page could contain data for multiple properties attached to the label such as:

  <data name="myLabelResource1.Font-Name">
    <value xml:space="preserve">Default Font name</value>
  </data>
  <data name="myLabelResource1.Text">
    <value xml:space="preserve">Text in default language.</value>
  </data>
  <data name="myLabelResource1.ToolTip">
    <value>Tooltip in default language.</value>
  </data>

The ASP.NET quickstarts provide a great primer if you want to understand the concept.