In this tutorial, we are going to configure
the application/user settings in a WPF application
the easy way. Most example that I’ve seen on
the net involve
the ConfigurationManager class and involve creating your own XML file from scratch. I am going to show you a easier way to do it. (in my humble opinion)
First,
the definitions:
User Setting – is designed to be something specific to
the user. For example, one user may have a requirement to see certain stocks, news articles or local weather. This can be set at run-time.
Application Setting – is designed to store information such as a database connection string. These settings are read-only at run-time.
1) Lets create a new WPF Project and play with a few settings. Once you are inside VS, then paste
the following code snippet inside
the <Grid> tags.
<Grid>
<TextBox Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="12,11,0,0" Name="textBox1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="285" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" />
<Button Content="Set Title" Name="button2" Click="button2_Click" Margin="108,40,96,114" />
<TextBlock Height="23" Name="textBlock1" Text="TextBlock" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Width="377" />
</Grid>
Basically, its just a Textbox, Button and TextBlock.
The main Window should look like
the following:
2) Now we are going to setup our Configuration Settings. Look in
the Solution Explorer and double click on
the Settings.settings file. Make sure that your settings file looks just like mine included below:
What just happened was
the designer created an XML file and created
the Settings.Designer.cs file which looks like this:
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
// This code was generated by a tool.
// Runtime Version:4.0.30319.1
//
// Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
//
the code is regenerated.
// </auto-generated>
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
namespace WPFExam.Properties {
[global::System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CompilerGeneratedAttribute()]
[global::System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("Microsoft.VisualStudio.Editors.SettingsDesigner.SettingsSingleFileGenerator", "10.0.0.0")]
internal sealed partial class Settings : global::System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase {
private static Settings defaultInstance = ((Settings)(global::System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsBase.Synchronized(new Settings())));
public static Settings Default {
get {
return defaultInstance;
}
}
[global::System.Configuration.UserScopedSettingAttribute()]
[global::System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute()]
[global::System.Configuration.DefaultSettingValueAttribute("ApplicationName")]
public string ApplicationName {
get {
return ((string)(this["ApplicationName"]));
}
set {
this["ApplicationName"] = value;
}
}
[global::System.Configuration.ApplicationScopedSettingAttribute()]
[global::System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute()]
[global::System.Configuration.DefaultSettingValueAttribute("SQL_SRV342")]
public string DatabaseServerName {
get {
return ((string)(this["DatabaseServerName"]));
}
}
}
}
The XML File is named app.config and looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="userSettings" type="System.Configuration.UserSettingsGroup, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >
<section name="WPFExam.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" allowExeDefinition="MachineToLocalUser" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>
<sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >
<section name="WPFExam.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<userSettings>
<WPFExam.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="ApplicationName" serializeAs="String">
<value>ApplicationName</value>
</setting>
</WPFExam.Properties.Settings>
</userSettings>
<applicationSettings>
<WPFExam.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="DatabaseServerName" serializeAs="String">
<value>SQL_SRV342</value>
</setting>
</WPFExam.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>
</configuration>
3)
The only left now is
the code behind
the button. Double click
the button and replace
the MainWindow() method with
the following code snippet.
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
this.Title = Properties.Settings.Default.ApplicationName;
textBox1.Text = Properties.Settings.Default.ApplicationName;
textBlock1.Text = Properties.Settings.Default.DatabaseServerName;
}
private void button2_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
Properties.Settings.Default.ApplicationName = textBox1.Text.ToString();
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
}
Run
the application and type something in
the textbox and hit
the Set Title button. Now, restart
the application and you should see
the text that you entered earlier.
If you look at
the button2 click event, you will see that it was actually 2 lines of codes to
save to
the configuration file. I hope this helps, for more information consult MSDN.
