I'm trying to write a small game in VisualStudio, C# language to improve and practice. The thing I'm trying to do is to have a config file that the user can edit with the settings menu in the game. I know I could write a simple .ini file and parse that when the program starts, but is there a better and simpler way to do it?
Just serialize/deserialize the whole class representing your settings to/from a file, that's the easiest to implement. You can use e.g. Json.NET
File.WriteAllText(#"C:\config.json", JsonConvert.SerializeObject(settings));
var settings = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Settings>(File.ReadAllText(#"C:\config.json"));
1- Add an Application Configuration File to your project (right
click project > add item). This will be called app.config inside your project.
2- Add Parameter to the file by :
System.Configuration.Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(Application.ExecutablePath);
config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("Yourkey","Value");
config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Minimal);
3 - Retrieve Data:
Configuration config =
ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(Application.ExecutablePath);
string Value = config.AppSettings.Settings["Yourkey"].Value
You can use a the integrated settings functionality in .NET Framework in the System.Configuration namespace.
To create a settings file, you need to add one in visual studio via the add element dialog. Select "Settings" an give it a name.
Add settings file to yout project
Then you need to add settings to the file. There is a nice gui editor when you doble click on the file in solution explorer:
Add settings to file
To access the values in code, you need get an instace of the settings object via the static propertie calles "Default" in you settings class:
Access settings value in code
Don´t forget to call MySettingsClass.Default.Save() to save changed values before you close your application.
There are much more features than read an save values withe this method. You can read more about it here and here.
Related
I need to store few config values which will be changed by the application administrator. I do not want to store them in web.config files, because whenever web.config file is edited the system will recompile the application.
DBA is not letting me to create a table to store it in database.
Can you suggest some way where I can store this editable values.
Thank you for the suggestion.
it is a ASP.NET application.
You could store them in your own config file. For example you could put this file inside the ~/App_Data folder and then read the config file when you need the values. As far as the format of this file is concerned you have many choices: plain Text, XML, JSON, whatever you like.
As an alternative you could write your own ConfigSection and set restartOnExternalChanges="false".
Then, when reading the section with ConfigurationManager.GetSection("yourSection") the settings will be auto-refreshed without an application restart.
If you still wish to keep web.config untouched, you can use configSource property to set external file where your settings will be kept.
To design a new section you can use this tool: http://csd.codeplex.com/
Is there a way to save application configurations and settings that user have customized in a way like we use the app.config file?
the app.config file is read-only so I cannot add keys or edit values in it.
I want something easy to use that have add or edit keys and values just like app.config.
users customize their settings in visual forms and then the program should store it.
Use ConfigurationManager in System.Configuration namespace
The normal app.config is only read-only to the normal user, but a shadow is written to the user's data folders when you save a User setting.
But you may have to expand on "Add keys".
Isolated storage can be used for this purpose:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc221360(v=vs.95).aspx
How can I overwrite the app.config file form the App Data folder with the default one by code?
Not sure what you mean but you can use at the configurationSettings class to manage settings, you can also use a simple Data.XML namespace and change the XML in the config file and save it back but just beware that it is not the recommanded.
typically i have always created an config object that i read all the config file settings and use it as a singleton in my code. if you want you can add a save method to the class that saves back the config file if you want to persist the changes that your code makes to the config class.
You can use a settings file. The VS designer will generate a proxy class for you. For each entry you can specify in the properties window wether you want to "GenerateDefaultInCode" or not. This way, you can configure your settings in the app.config file under the "ApplicationsSettings" section and at the same time rely on default values (set via attributes in the proxy class) in the generated code.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730869(VS.80).aspx for how to add a .settings file to your project.
As pointed out here default values should be used with care because they can lead to error-prone behaviour when you deploy to a different environment.
I am creating a winform application in .net 2 with c#. I need to be able to save user configuration data and I am considering using an XML file for this propose. What is the general feeling for saving user configuration data? I have read that it is not in vogue to write to the registry but rather to a file instead. Please write your thoughts.
One option is to add it to settings file. In Visual Studio, go to My Project -> Settings and add it there. You can access it this way: C# - properties.settings.default...; VB - My.Settings...
Adding a setting to settings file stores the value in app config file and auto generates a class property for easy access to the value.
Use the ConfigurationManager class to store the settings.
I know it is a good idea to store configuration data in app.config (e.g. database connection strings) instead of hardcoing it, even if I am writing an application just for myself. But is there a way to update the configuration data stored in app.config from the program that is using it?
If you use the Settings for the project, you can mark each setting as either application or user.
If they're set as user, they will be stored per-user and when you call the Save method it will be updated in the config for that user.
Code project has a really detailed article on saving all types of settings.
app.config isn't what you want to use for user-tweakable data, as it'll be stored somewhere in Program Files (which the user shouldn't have write permissions to). Instead, settings marked with a UserScopedSettingAttribute will end up in a user-scoped .config file somewhere in %LocalAppData%.
I found the best way to learn this stuff was to mess with the Visual Studio "Settings" tab (on your project's property pages), then look at the code that it generates and look in %LocalAppData% to see the file that it generates.