How to edit a .resx file on Mac OS ?


Few weeks ago, a project manager on OSX was stuck to edit a .resx file to translate some texts for a DotNet website we are currently developing for one of our client Ray-Ban.

At Marcel, our back-end expertise is more oriented with PHP websites translated with XML or PO files. It’s easy to edit this kind of files with any text-editor or PO editor. But how to edit a .resx file on Mac ?

I was looking for solutions to help him on few forums but it seems no one solved this topic. I guess people gave up and switched on a PC or launched a virtual machine to edit this file.

Back to basics : what is a resx file ?

A .resx file format is simply an XML-like file that can store application resources. It contains resources in <data> and <value> pairs.

For more details, you can visit the Microsoft website

If you try to edit a .resx file with a text editor as Sublime Text, you will be able to do it and change the value of the data key. Yes but if you need to edit a lot of data key, you know that your eyes will bleed…

Welcome to project manager’s life

But if you’re looking for an IDE on Mac to save your eyes, it seems no software are available (at least freeware). Maybe someone will contradict me. Meanwhile please find below my solution

The trick

The trick is to use an online xml converter provided by Webtranslateit : http://converter.webtranslateit.com

It will able to edit the .resx file in any format you want.
I recommend .PO files

Upload your .resx file on the website
Convert to .po file
Edit your file with POedit
Not sexy as Photoshop but better no ?

When it’s done, do the same thing in the opposite way.

Upload your .po file on the website
Convert to .resx file
Send to the DotNet tech guys

And voilà !