C# 4 and .NET 4

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be available to the complete application. Here, the resource dictionary is added within the resources of the
main window:
code snippet WPFApplicationUsingXAMLDictionaries/MainWindow.xaml
To use the XAML resource dictionary from code behind, you can use the indexer of the Resources
property, the FindResource() method or the TryFindResource() method. Because the resource is
defined with the window, the indexer of the Resources property of the Window class can be used to access
the resource. FindResource() does a hierarchical search for a resource. If you use the FindResource()
method of the Button, and if it is not found with the Button resources, then resources are searched in
the Grid. If the resource is not there, a lookup to the Window resources is done before the Application
resources are consulted.
private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
MessageBox.Show(this.Resources["Message1"] as string);
MessageBox.Show(this.FindResource("Message1") as string);
}
code snippet WPFApplicationUsingXAMLDictionaries/MainWindow.xaml.cs
Uid attributes for localization
With the custom resource dictionary file, the text from the code that should be localized can be referenced.
For localizing XAML code with WPF elements, the x:Uid attribute is used as a unique identifier for the
elements that need localization. You don’t have to apply this attribute manually to the XAML content;
instead, you can use the msbuild command with this option:
msbuild /t:updateuid
When you call this command in the directory where the project file is located, the XAML files of the project
are modified to add an x:Uid attribute with a unique identifier to every element. If the control already has
a Name or x:Name attribute applied, the x:Uid has the same value; otherwise, a new value is generated. The
same XAML that was shown before now has the new attributes applied:
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