Though a conceptually simple Visual C++ application for counting time and generating an audio alarm, Timer has constituted an interesting test bed for some specific user interface, localization and architecture features that are significant in more complex internationalized programs. Quite often, the requirement of internationalization prevents from using ready-made functions provided by the development environment and requires that they be specifically written. The English, French and Italian versions of Timer are available for download. The user can customize the alarm jingle by replacing the .wav sound file.

Specific code has been written to develop a non-standard user interface, featuring owner drawn buttons and a special progress bar, not using standard Windows components provided by the Visual C++ development environment. The user interface also includes standard Help and context Help.

Software localization
All the dialog window text strings, including static text, are not hard coded into a resource description, but originate from a single string table in the .rc file. Translation can be directly performed by translating the string table, without searching for strings in the resource definition statements. All the strings are UNICODE and the bimodal API text routines have been used. The code generating error messages corresponding to data input has been customized by rewriting the DDV_ e DDX_ functions, so that the error dialog boxes, besides being localized, maintain the colors and the graphics layout of the application. All strings are included in the string table but for colored buttons bitmaps strings. Separate colored key bitmaps exist for each language.
All the context Help strings of the main Timer window are generated by the application itself using WinHelp API calls. The functions for the Exit and ? buttons have been specifically written to prevent the corresponding help strings be provided by the operating system. This has been done to avoid, for example, displaying a help context string in English when a Timer application localized in some other language is executed on an English OS.

Software architecture - statically/dynamically linked .exe/.dll
Timer is statically linked and its software has been internationalized at resource level: the localized versions contain any specific resources required. Static linking has been preferred in order to ensure portability to different Windows platforms and installation simplicity.
A dynamically linked version of the application also exists, featuring execution level internationalization: it consists of an executable and of a dynamic link library that contains both English and Italian resources. When this configuration is run the user interface is either English or Italian in accordance with the language selected in the Control Panel Regional Settings. Another dynamically linked version uses the same executable with a different dynamic link library, which is smaller and contains only the resources of the application in a single specific language. Consequently the user interface is always in this specific language. This architecture makes it possible to localize the application into different languages by simply implementing new dynamic link libraries containing the specific resources, with no modifications to the executable required.