I was trying to come up with a way to store some user-submitted config data (in essence, a unique identifier corresponding to a device they want monitored), when I came across the Application Settings in Visual Studio 2010 C# Express.
My question is this: I there a reason why I should or shouldn’t use the application settings area to keep track of this information? Would it be a better idea to store it in a flat file I create and just have the program read in from that?
(The app settings I’m referring to are off of the project right-click menu: Properties->Settings, and I’m storing them with User scope.)
No, this is exactly where you should store such information. That’s what this feature was designed for.
Writing it out to a separate file should really only be considered if you need the information to be portable, or for the user to be able to interact with it directly as if it were one of their personal files. Otherwise, just let the system handle it automatically.