I'm having some trouble merging the localization satellite assemblies into the plugin DLL for CRM2011.
Either that, or I don't know how to use the merged resources afterwards.
I create a few plugins and create a basic resource file (default - English) and one for a specific culture (at the time of writing it's for Polish localizations, but later I'll need to add French as well).
I make sure not to sign the assembly itself, as ILMerge will sign the finished assembly itself.
This is the command I use to merge the extra satellite assembly:
ilmerge /targetplatform:v4,C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 /log:log.txt /keyfile:KeyFile.snk /out:Plugins.dll DynamicsCRM2011.Plugins.dll pl-PL\DynamicsCRM2011.Plugins.resources.dll
As you can see, the plugins are in .NET 4.0 and I've got the required .config file for ILMerge to use the required assemblies for merging.
The generated file appears fine, I can register it with CRM plugin-registrator, add new steps and so forth.
However, it will always use the default language. I've tried changing the System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.UICulture, but this didn't help. When I created a ResourceManager class and used GetString("ErrorMessage", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("pl-PL")), I got an Exception that the specified ResourceManager doesn't know what to do with the specified culture.
I know of this question here. However, the posted solution seems to be an old one. The generated resource .cs files do not use a ComponentResourceManager. Also, parts of the code posted there have been marked as deprecated.
I'm not really sure what I'm am to do now, or how to further debug this, as I have very little experience when it comes to working with assemblies themselves. Please, help me get those satellite assemblies under control.
Update:
I've been working with sandbox plugins for a while now, and thus I no longer have access to things such as CurrentCulture (or at least I cannot change such things). I've tried tackling this problem once more: I've created a simple plugin which is fired when a new Account is saved. Nothing fancy. Here's the actual plugin code:
ResourceManager rm = new ResourceManager(typeof(Properties.Resources));
var s = rm.GetString("ErrorAlreadyPosted", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("pl-PL"));
throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException(s);
The code no longer throws an exception about not being able to find the specified culture... also the code obviously throws an exception at the end, but the important thing is WHAT the exception message is. I'd expect it to be in Polish.
Alas, it is not. The string returned by GetString is still in English.
The command I used for ILmerge is the same as before, but with the /lib parameter specified so that I don't have to copy all the CRM SDK dlls...
The way we eventually handled this is by adding the localization XML files (generated by Visual Studio) as CRM resources, and created a bit of custom code which seeks the appropriate resource and then seeks the localization text inside.
It's, obviously, not as simple as just using the generated C# localization class, and requires some prep work. However, with that prep-work in place and with using nameof it's now almost as simple as the aforementioned resource classes.