Maintaining global lists for ComboBox values

Question

I would like to maintain multi-lingual lists of allowable categories to be used
in ComboBox controls. The values for these lists should be stored external to
the application or at some global level to that they can be maintained by someone
who is not necessarily a developer.
When the user chooses a language when the application runs, the arrayCollections
containing the data/value pairs should be loaded with the data in the appropriate
language. These arrayCollections would be then bound as the data providers to
ComboBox controls in the various modules and components of the application.
For example, in an application about cars there could be a ComboBox containing
colors  - in English (red, gray, blue, black) in German (rot, grau, blau, schwarz).
There could also be a ComboxBox containing body types: (sedan, coupe, convertible)
or (limosine, coupe, cabriolet).
ComboBoxes using the data could be used anywhere in the application - in modules,
components or whatever.
What would be the best way to approach this from a design perspective? Where should
the lists to be loaded into the control's data provider at run time be stored?
Scott

Answer 1

Resource modules are probably the right answer. They can even do an enumeration of sorts (an Array of Strings, which sounds like it could be a good fit for colors). In any case, if you ensure that your model (e.g., CarBuilderManager, with methods like getColors() and getBodyTypes()) is cleanly separated from your views and the actual comboboxes, you can do your localization work in there. Then, in your view, you can declare comboboxes like
<mx:ComboBox id="colors" dataProvider="{model.getColors()}"/>
and you can easily adapt the localization without changing the view (e.g., if you find ResourceManager is not doing it for you, you can roll your own localization method).