Announcing Multilingual App Toolkit v3.0

The Multilingual App Toolkit v3.0 was release on April 2nd at the //build 2014 event. This was an exciting release as we were able to coordinate with the //build 2014 and present at the build event! This release expands the scope of the Multilingual App Toolkit as well as implements additional feedback received from the Multilingual App Toolkit user voice site.

The team was able to add support for desktop apps as requested by the community. As a result WPF, WinForm and ASP.NET MVC projects are now supported using the same workflow as that of Store and Phone apps.

Support for the new Universal Apps in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC required some key implementation decisions. One key decision was how enablement should function. After some debate, we decided to enable MAT based on the specific project instead of the shared project. The key reason for this approach was to enable form factor specific translation management.

Another key area of focus was around overall performance improvements. While we still have more work in this area, we believe the current improvements will make a significant difference in your build times. We understand that overall build performance is very important and will continue to work to make it even better.

A subtle, but important improvement was made to the Microsoft Translator provider. As you may know, the Microsoft Translator HUB empowers businesses and communities to build, improve, and deploy customized automatic language translation systems. MAT v3.0 has added support for the HUB. By default it is set to the “tech” category, but can be switched to any category that you may already be using. Simply edit the Microsoft Translator configuration file and change the <category> element to specify your desired category.

The file is located here: %ProgramData%\Multilingual App Toolkit\MicrosoftTranslatorProvider\TranslatorSettings.xml.


<ID>B7F979A8-D491-451C-84E8-F0C49BE620E3</ID>
<Category>Tech</Category>
<Languages>

The MAT team believes these product and community driven improvements will help your efforts to create the best global apps around!  As always, feel free to comment below and make use of the user voice site to request or vote for your favorite MAT feature.

Summary of key changes in MAT v3.0:

  1. Support for Windows Desktop apps (WPF, WinForms and ASP.NET MVC)
  2. Store Universal App support
  3. Build performance improvements
  4. Added MT HUB support for the Microsoft Translator provider.
  5. Added editor support for alt+xxxx combinations
  6. General bug fixes throughout the product

Thank you,

The Multilingual App Toolkit team
multilingual@microsoft.com