How to save Application theme name in App.config - c#

In my application user can select any theme to apply. But if he closes application and opens it again, Themes changes doesn't same. I want that these changes should be saved so if user after applying theme will open it again, changes should be saved and apply.
Should I have to save name of theme in app.config or is there any other way to solve this?
I need your suggestions. Thank you.

Try this:
<appSettings>
<add key="Theme" value ="YOUR_COLOR"/>
</appSettings>
and use it in this way in the application:
using System.Configuration;
string myTheme=ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("Theme");

If you're talking about an ASP.NET application - you should read the How To: Apply ASP.NET Themes documentation MSDN.
Basically, in the web.config of your web application, you can define the theme to be used:
<configuration>
<system.web>
<pages theme="ThemeName" />
</system.web>
</configuration>
With this configuration, the ASP.NET web application will automatically use that theme - no manual coding necessary on your side.

Related

Use App.config with a Custom Section shared between two different projects

Scenario
I have developed a windows service which is configured by its App.config file.
This file contains the information in the standard sections (connectionStrings, appSettings) and in a custom section (sourceTabSection).
In the windows service project i have 4 classes which allow me to get/set the config file content. They are based on what is written in this article: Writing a Custom ConfigurationSection to handle a Collection and i have no problems on using them inside my service.
The problems come when i try to get/set the custom section (with the standard sections i don't have any problems) of the App.config, belong to the Windows service, using another application that in my case is a Windows Form that allows users to view/set parameters for the windows service.
The Windows Form application has the same pack of 4 classes used by the service, in order to handle the App.config.
When the code that get/set custom parameters of Windows Service is excuted on the Windows Form app I get the following error message:
{"An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for sourceTabSection: Could not load type 'DataReportingService.CustomSourceTabSection.SourceTabSection' from assembly 'DataReportingService'."}
The problem is due to this following line of code in the App.config
<section name="sourceTabSection" type="DataReportingService.CustomSourceTabSection.SourceTabSection, DataReportingService"/>
The attribute type of the tag shown above has the following meaning (it's explained here: section Element for configSections):
type="Fully qualified class name, assembly file name, version, culture, public key token"
Following what is written on Writing a Custom ConfigurationSection to handle a Collection article I defined only the first two parameter (Fully qualified class name, assembly file name) of the attribute type. Microsoft documentation (no more maintained) doesn't specify that the other parameters can be not defined, but the example that I followed and others use this approach.
However the point is this phrase about the type attribute on Microsoft documentation:
The assembly file must be located in the same application directory
So, due to this bond, seems to be impossible to handle custom section of an application A from another application B (which has another assembly) using this approach.
So do you know how could I solve this problem?
Windows service - App.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="sourceTabSection" type="DataReportingService.CustomSourceTabSection.SourceTabSection, DataReportingService"/>
</configSections>
<!-- *** CUSTOM SECTION *** -->
<sourceTabSection>
<Tables>
<sourceTab name="TEST" db_conn_str="****"
keep_time="1" scan_frequency_process_rows="1"
scan_frequency_delete_processed_rows="1" />
<sourceTab name="TEST_2" db_conn_str="****"
keep_time="1" scan_frequency_process_rows="1"
scan_frequency_delete_processed_rows="1" />
</Tables>
</sourceTabSection>
<!-- *** STANDARD SECTIONS *** -->
<connectionStrings>
<add name="DB_Target" connectionString="Data Source=192.168.2.2;Initial Catalog=PlantDompe;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=sa;Password=Gf6swML0MXiqbOFuvRDvdg==;"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
<appSettings>
<add key="TAB_ALARMS_TARGET" value="AlarmsProcess" />
<add key="TAB_VALUE_TARGET" value="USER_CHANGES" />
<add key="TAB_LOGINS_TARGET" value="USER_LOGONS" />
<add key="LOG_DIR" value="C:/Users/rossi/Documents/Visual Studio 2017/Projects/DRS_proj/Log/" />
</appSettings>
<startup>
<supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.6.2" />
</startup>
<system.web>
<trust level="Full" />
<webControls clientScriptsLocation="/aspnet_client/{0}/{1}/" />
</system.web>
</configuration>
Ugly solution
If found a work around to this problem by performing the two following steps on the Windows Form application that need to view/set the parameters (custom and no custom) inside the App.config of the Windows Service:
Using visual studio i go to Solution Properties > Application tab, and I change the following values
Assembly name = DataReportingService
Default namespace = DataReportingService
Note: DataReportingService is the name of the window service with the App.config file
Find and replace all the references to old namespace with the new one
In this way I can handle the custom section of the App.config, but honestly it's a really ugly solution and I think that there should be something better.
Thanks #Alex Paven, your comment has helped me to solve this problem!
Here below there are the detailed steps of what I've done:
I moved the 4 classes which handles the Windows service config file in a Class Library project (.NET Framework) called: DRS_CustomConfig.
I changed the namespace of the 4 classes with the following value: DRS_CustomConfig and then I compiled the project.
I linked the external library both in the Windows service project and in Windows Form application
For each class of both projects which need to use the classes contained in the external library I inserted the following piece of code:
using DRS_CustomConfig;
In the App.config of the Windows service I changed the section element as follows:
Old
<section name="sourceTabSection"
type="DataReportingService.CustomSourceTabSection.SourceTabSection,
DataReportingService"/>
New
<section name="sourceTabSection"
type="DRS_CustomConfig.SourceTabSection, DRS_CustomConfig"/>

How to programatically update custom attribute in app config file

My app.config.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
</configSections>
<Something SettingsLocation="D:\test\test\file.json" />
<Something />
</configuration>
I need to update SettingsLocation programatically.
I found this some answers, but it is not clear to me.
Thanks fo help.
Each application has it’s own configuration file, be it a windows based application or web based.
This application configuration file defines information which can be used by application to make decisions, to load some other information or may contain the custom configuration which can be empowered to do anything.
There can also be scenarios where an application may want to change\modify the existing setting in the application configuration file and those changes should not only take effect immediately but should also be persisted.
Possible solution is already shown here

Why do my IIS site-specific application settings disappear?

I'm hosting an ASP.NET C# website using IIS on Windows Server. I publish to the IIS server using Web Deploy. I have a few application settings that I configure via IIS' site-specific application settings - mostly passwords that I don't want in plain-text in my app.config within the project itself. Every time that I publish, the settings that I've created via IIS disappear. I think the publish is over writing them. I can't figure out how to get them to persist through publishes. Does anybody know how to get the IIS application settings to remain even through Web Deploy publishes?
Not sure if that solves your problem, but you could try something like this:
Every config section has an optional attribute named "configSource" to
point to an external file. Therefore you could break down your web.config
into several files and update them accoringly:
web.config:
...
<configuration>
<appSettings/>
<connectionStrings configSource="connectionStrings.config"/>
<system.web>
...
connectionStrings.config:
<connectionStrings>
<add name="defaultConnectionString" connectionString="..." providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
Then you could set the connectionString.config to not be included in the output of the project and just keep it unchanged on the server.
You could also:
-create a new build configuration for deployment
-add a web.config transformation for this build configuration
-deploy using this build configuration
That's how I usually do it

How to deploy ASP.NET application to production machine without having to change DB connection string manually

As it stands, right now when I deploy my web application I always go into my web.config file to change the server name etc from the connection string manually before deploying the application. Is there an easier way to deploy a web app without having to always change the server in the connection string?
Thanks
Use a transform Web.config When Deploying a Web Application Project:
How to: Transform Web.config When Deploying a Web Application Project
Web.config Transformation Syntax for Web Project Deployment Using Visual Studio
It depends on how you are deploying your web app, but one common way to do it is to use web.config transforms
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465326%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
we use WIX installer exactly for this purpose.
It can be customized, like in my case, to select DEV, QA or PROD env while installation.
Best thing is it uses underlying MSI installation framework, if thats the right word here.
Assuming you only need to change the connection string for just one specific Web Deploy then you can do that with a transformation as others have said. The following should show exactly what you need to do.
In Solution Explorer expand the Properties node to get the PublishProperties as in the following.
Right-click on the Web Deploy profile and select Add Config Transform as shown in the following.
You will get a Web.project - Web Deploy.config file in the Web Config node. The initial contents will be the following.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- For more information on using web.config transformation visit https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125889 -->
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
<!--
In the example below, the "SetAttributes" transform will change the value of
"connectionString" to use "ReleaseSQLServer" only when the "Match" locator
finds an attribute "name" that has a value of "MyDB".
<connectionStrings>
<add name="MyDB"
connectionString="Data Source=ReleaseSQLServer;Initial Catalog=MyReleaseDB;Integrated Security=True"
xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)"/>
</connectionStrings>
-->
<system.web>
<compilation xdt:Transform="RemoveAttributes(debug)" />
<!--
In the example below, the "Replace" transform will replace the entire
<customErrors> section of your web.config file.
Note that because there is only one customErrors section under the
<system.web> node, there is no need to use the "xdt:Locator" attribute.
<customErrors defaultRedirect="GenericError.htm"
mode="RemoteOnly" xdt:Transform="Replace">
<error statusCode="500" redirect="InternalError.htm"/>
</customErrors>
-->
</system.web>
Change the sample to the following or add the following.
<connectionStrings>
<add name="csname"
connectionString="yourotherconnectionstring"
xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)"/>
</connectionStrings>
Where csname is the name in the Web.config of your connection string that you need to replace in the deployment.
There are many other transformations possible but if you only need to change the connection string for a specific Web Deploy then that should be the most straight forward. It is saying that you want to search for the connection string that has the specified name and then change the connection string value during the deployment.

Hiding private details from open source projects

I have a .net github project that is basically a wrapper around a web API. In the test project, I am calling to the API using an API key. I need to keep this key private, how do I accomplish this in a visual studio project?
In some other projects, like python, I can have git ignore the file (config.py) and use something like config.example.py. But in visual studio's case, the project will not compile because of the missing file Config.cs. What is the proper way to solve this? I'm thinking of using this same method of ignoring the file and have them execute a build script that should rename Config.example.cs to Config.cs?
This is the perfect for .config files. Depending on whether its a web or console application, you will have a web.config or app.config file in your project.
You can use the appSettings section to store your API key.
To make things even easier, you can actually have this section read from another file, ie: specialappsettings.config and then just ignore that single file from your repository.
Modify your web.config (or app.config):
<configuration>
<appSettings file="specialappsettings.config">
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<!-- standard web settings go here -->
</system.web>
</configuration>
Create a new specialappsettings.config file:
<appSettings>
<add key="APIKey" value="YourApiKeyValue" />
<add key="AnotherKey" value="AnotherValue" />
</appSettings>
This can be accessed in your code via:
var apiKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["APIKey"];
Notes:
You can keep your settings within the original web.config file as
well but this lets you ignore just the specific settings file from
your git repository without affecting the rest of the project's
necessary configuration details.
The same "key" can be saved in
either file however the external file will override the original
web.config file value.
You are probably looking for the App.config file for a project. It will be copied to <application>.exe.config when you compile it. Users can edit that config file as needed.
In that config file, you can add your API keys:
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="APIKey" value="12345"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Then you can access it from your code using ConfigurationManager.AppSettings:
string apiKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["APIKey"];
One option is to use .config files instead of having secret keys hardcoded in sources.
More info Using Settings in C# and step-by-step guide
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="SecretKey" value="0" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
var secretKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("SecretKey");
Perhaps you can store the key outside of the Config.cs file and load it at run time.
Bonus, other people using your code won't have to recompile the project to change to their API key.

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