Bi-directional Features at Design Time in Visual Studio

  • Article

Visual Studio allows you to work with bi-directional languages as you create applications. Visual Studio itself is not fully bi-directional, but it does allow you to create fully bi-directional applications.

Note

In order to enter and display bi-directional languages, you must be working with a version of Windows that is configured with the appropriate language. This can either be an English version of Windows with the appropriate language pack installed, or the appropriately localized version of Windows.

Features That Are Fully Supported

At design time in Visual Studio, you can use bi-directional languages in these ways:

  • Text entry   Visual Studio supports Unicode, so if your system is set to the appropriate locale and input language, you can enter text in Arabic or Hebrew. (Arabic support includes Kashida and Diacritics.)

  • Object names   You can use bi-directional languages to assign names to solutions, projects, files, folders, and so on. In code, you can use bi-directional languages for the names of variables, classes, object, attributes, metadata, and other elements. For more information, see Arabic or Hebrew Text in Object Names.

  • File encoding   You can save and open files with a language-specific or Unicode encoding. For more information, see How to: Save and Open Files with Encoding.

Features with Limited or No Support

Other features common to bi-directional language applications are not fully supported in Visual Studio, or in some cases, not at all. These include:

  • Right-to-left reading order   By default, text-entry controls you use in Visual Studio use left-to-right reading order. In most cases, you can use standard Windows gestures to switch reading order. For example, you can press Ctrl+Right Shift to switch the Properties window to support right-to-left reading order for property values.

    However, right-to-left reading order is not supported everywhere in Visual Studio. Exceptions include:

    • Check boxes, drop-down lists, and other controls in Visual Studio dialog boxes always use left-to-right reading order.

    • The code editor (and text editor) does not support right-to-left reading order. You can enter text in a bi-directional language, but the reading order is always left-to-right.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Save and Open Files with Encoding

Concepts

Arabic or Hebrew Text in Object Names

Other Resources

Globalizing and Localizing Applications