I have posted my research project, which turned out to be a semester long assignment instead of a month as I had hoped ;)
Grant Killian also has a great entry on why to use resource files that you should check out.
The project (code named Henley): The Basics of Resource Files in .Net 1.1
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to give the reader a better understanding of some common ways to use resource files in .Net applications. The goal of this article is to answer the following questions:
· What are resources?
· What are resource files?
· How do you create resource files?
· How do you use resource files?
· How do you write code that uses resource files?
In order to answer these questions and give the reader a better understanding of resources in .Net version 1.1 we will walk through a small exercise with VS.Net and really looking to see what goes on behind the scenes as well as introduce several utility applications that will help you work with resources. Then we will go through the code of a sample application that uses images and strings from resource files in order to see some real code that uses resource files.
In this article, I am not going to cover any ASP.Net or satellite assembly specific topics, I think they would be better explained in another article.
Read the complete article
Download Word version of complete article
Download the code (warning the sample application has images embedded in it so the file sizes are 8mg+ so only download what you want)
Sample Application - VB.Net version
Sample Application - C# version
Sample Application - C++ version
Utility - RFC and WinResourceFileCreator
Utility - RW and WinResourceWrapper
ResourceFileWrapper
This is a utility that can be used to generate a C# or Visual Basic.Net class that wraps your resource file.
http://jasonhaley.com/articles/resourcefiles/resource%20wrapper.htm
.Net SDK Tools
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\SDK\v1.1\Bin
AL.exe
Assembly Linker - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/cpgrfAssemblyGenerationUtilityAlexe.asp
CSC.exe
C# compiler - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cscomp/html/vcrefcsharpcompileroptionslistedalphabetically.asp
ILDasm.exe
IL Dissembler – http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/cpconMSILDisassemblerIldasmexe.asp
ILAsam.exe
IL Assembler - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/cpconMSILAssemblerIlasmexe.asp
ResGen.exe
Resource File Generator - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cptools/html/cpgrfResourceFileGeneratorUtilityResgenexe.asp
VBC.exe
Visual Basic Compiler - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vblr7/html/valrfVBCompilerOptionsListedAlphabetically.asp
.Net SDK Tutorials and code
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\SDK\v1.1\Samples\Tutorials\resourcesandlocalization
ResXGen
Console application sample utility that will generate an .resx file and add images to it (give the path to the image).
ResDump
Console application sample that will iterate all the resources in resource files
ResEditor
Windows form sample that will allow you to edit a resource file
Resource Editor for .resx files
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3FF9C915-30E5-430E-95B3-621DCCD25150&displaylang=en
ResView
http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/clr/bcl/demos/demos/zipfiles/ResViewCS.zip
Resourcer for .Net
http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/
Reflector
http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/
Resource Editor 1.2 for VS.Net
http://weblogs.asp.net/gmilano/archive/2004/11/12/256582.aspx
Assembly Viewer
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/asmex.asp
VS.Net Command Prompt Here
http://www.larkware.com/Articles/VS.NETCommandPromptHere.html