Hi Bob,
If these are managed WinForms then you can in fact change the size and location using my product (see the "Form View" feature). I don't recall seeing any other product that supported this feature the last time I checked (admittedly sometime ago).
What other products sometimes support is the ability to view your translated forms, but not actually change the size and location of its controls in a designer setting (unlike my own product). However, don't get too excited just yet. Creating forms
in a design-time environment outside of VS is non-trivial since MSFT never really designed things for it. For instance, form-based ".resx" files don't always contain all the info req'd to perfectly create a form. MSFT doesn't always populate
this file with all the necessary info for some controls and even their own crude "WinRes.exe" utility (therefore) can't handle it. It's simply not possible without turning to other techniques. Even then it's still not trivial however and I had a
very tough time getting the "Form View" feature to work as it is (even after consulting with some members of the WinForms team a MSFT). There's also the matter of 3rd-party controls (including your own perhaps). whose assemblies won't likely
be installed on a translator's machine. Even if installed, some 3rd-party controls don't always follow certain MSFT protocols so it often makes it very difficult to create them. I could go on about the difficulties but for the most part my product
does a very good job, all things considered. It often creates a form perfectly (or near perfectly), depending on various factors. I would recommend trying it to see how it handles your own forms. Feel free to send any questions.
Note BTW that you may want to investigate the "TableLayoutPanel" control for future forms (since refactoring your existing forms wouldn't be easy). This control is even recommended by MSFT (for localization), since it automatically shifts all controls
around to accommodate different sized strings (so it's perfect for localization). It takes some solid practice to completely get your head around it though, and the impact of certain other form-based properties on its behavior, so it can be frustrating. Also
note that you may want to consider *not* localizing the "Control.Size" and "Control.Location" properties of your translated forms, but simply allow them to rely on these properties from the default language form. The default language values
of these properties would therefore have to be adjusted to accommodate all strings regardless of size (so controls don't bump into each other, etc.), but it's arguably much easier and less error-prone to handle things this way (opposed to juggling these properties
for every form in every language). It will take some effort of course.
Lastly, note that my product has much to offer in spite of the imperfect situation with forms (which all products I've seen have issues with), but I say this with my developer's hat on, and not merely because I'm trying to make a sale (I don't work that way).
It objectively makes the job orders of magnitudes easier and safer. It also has certain critical features which are completely absent in other products (again, last time I looked). This actually came as a surprise when I first investigated other products,
since these are must-have features for developers. For instance, after sending your strings out for translation, if you make any further changes to your strings in your solution (while they're out being translated), these will be detected when the translated
strings are returned. In any event, my product would be the tool of choice for me personally even if I wasn't the author (and it's also very stable). For whatever shortcomings it has, it does an excellent job overall for Visual Studio developers. A lot of
my customers agree (I've received a lot of feedback) and some have even abandoned some large and well-known products in favor of it. You need to be the judge yourself of course but give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised. If you want to contact me further
with product specific questions however, this obviously isn't the right forum so feel free to contact me at support@hexadigm.com. For any other questions however (unrelated to my product), you might want to continue to post them here if it will benefit others.
Good luck!
Larry (25+ years on MSFT platforms, mostly in C/C++)
