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Overview: String Editor

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A string table is a Windows resource that contains a list of IDs, values, and captions for all the strings of your application. For example, the status-bar prompts are located in the string table. An application can have only one string table.

String tables make it easy to localize your application into different languages. If all strings are in a string table, you can localize the application by translating the strings (and other resources) without changing source code.

With the String editor, you can edit a program’s string table resource. In a string table, strings are grouped into segments, or blocks, of 16 strings each. The segment a string belongs to is determined by the value of its identifier; for example, strings with identifiers of 0 to 15 are in one segment, strings with identifiers of 16 to 31 are in a second segment, and so on. Thus, to move a string from one segment to another you need to change its identifier.

Individual string segments are loaded on demand in order to conserve memory. For this reason, programmers usually try to group strings into logical groupings of 16 or less and then use each group or segment only when it is needed.

You can search for one or more strings in the string table, and use regular expressions with the Find command to locate all instances of strings that match a pattern. Also, you can select multiple strings and change their properties at one time.

What do you want to do?

Find a string

Add or delete a string

Move a string from one segment to another

Move a string from one resource script file to another

Change a string or its identifier

Change the properties of multiple strings

Add formatting or special characters to a string

Tip   While using the String editor, in many instances you can click the right mouse button to display a shortcut menu of resource-specific commands. The commands available depend on what the pointer is pointing to. For example, if you click while pointing to a string table entry, the shortcut menu shows the Cut, Copy, New String, and Properties commands.

Note   Windows does not allow the creation of empty string tables. If you create a string table with no entries, it is deleted automatically when you exit Microsoft Visual C++.