Question

My app is split up into a configuration tool which writes the configuration and a viewer which just reads and uses settings from the configuration.

What techniques for storing the properties would would be recommended in this scenario? Would XML for the different categories be a good idea?

The apps are developing in C#, on .NET 3.5 and using WinForms.

Answer 1

I would have a shared assembly, which contains your settings class. You can then serialize/deserialize this class to a common place on the hard drive:

[XmlRoot()]
public class Settings
{
    private static Settings instance = new Settings();

    private Settings() {}

    /// <summary>
    /// Access the Singleton instance
    /// </summary>
    [XmlElement]
    public static Settings Instance
    {
        get
        {
            return instance;
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the height.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value>The height.</value>
    [XmlAttribute]
    public int Height { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Main window status (Maximized or not)
    /// </summary>
    [XmlAttribute]
    public FormWindowState WindowState
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether this <see cref="Settings"/> is offline.
    /// </summary>
    /// <value><c>true</c> if offline; otherwise, <c>false</c>.</value>
    [XmlAttribute]
    public bool IsSomething
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Save setting into file
    /// </summary>
    public static void Serialize()
    {
        // Create the directory
        if (!Directory.Exists(AppTmpFolder))
        {
            Directory.CreateDirectory(AppTmpFolder);
        }

        using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(SettingsFilePath))
        {
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Settings));
            serializer.Serialize(writer, Settings.Instance);
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Load setting from file
    /// </summary>
    public static void Deserialize()
    {
        if (!File.Exists(SettingsFilePath))
        {
            // Can't find saved settings, using default vales
            SetDefaults();
            return;
        }
        try
        {
            using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(SettingsFilePath))
            {
                XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Settings));
                if (serializer.CanDeserialize(reader))
                {
                    Settings.instance = serializer.Deserialize(reader) as Settings;
                }
            }
        }
        catch (System.Exception)
        {
            // Failed to load some data, leave the settings to default
            SetDefaults();
        }
    }
}

Your xml file will then look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" Height="738" WindowState="Maximized" IsSomething="false" >
</Settings>