Abstract: Communicating local information, such as a user interface language, between a host application and a software component. In response to a user's request, the host application invokes the software component to perform a task addressing the user's request, such as generating user interface message. In order to determine the appropriate language for the user interface message, the software component queries the host application to identify the user and to return the user interface language requirements for the user. In the case where the host application is an end-user application, the host returns the current user interface language as the user interface language requirement. When the host application is a server application using a multi-threaded environment, the host application returns the user interface language of the currently running thread at the time of the query.

Abstract: In association with a computer system, a method and system for allowing multiple users to simultaneously edit a spreadsheet. Multiple users access a spreadsheet stored in a disk file and make independent changes to the spreadsheet. Changes are stored in respective memory change logs on each user's computer. When a user performs a save operation, the contents of the memory change log are appended to a disk change log in the disk file. When each user performs a save operation, each user's changes, as maintained in each respective memory change log, are appended to the disk change log. Conflicting changes that cannot simultaneously exist in the spreadsheet in the disk file are identified and resolved by allowing the user to select the winning action or automatically selecting the most recent action as the winning action. Losing actions in the memory change log are deleted and losing actions in the disk change log are effectively canceled by applying an inverse action to the losing action.