.Net 2.0 will introduce My.Settings to store user preferences. For .Net 1.1 i wanted to use approach described by Rockford Lhotka in MSDN article “Storing User Configurations”. It requires to create derived class with properties that you want to store.
I found 2 tips when created the derived class that is using IsolatedStorage.
1. Ignore FileNotFoundException error when load storage the first time.
2. Use assignment with cast when Load class from storage, e.g.
MySettings=MySettings.Load();
See the sample derived class below:
public class MySettings: vbUserSettings.UserSettingsBase
{//based on http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnadvnet/html/vbnet07082003.asp
//in .Net 2.0 will be replaced with My.Settings http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/vbmysettings.asp
//Constructors
public MySettings(): base()//required for serialization
{}
public MySettings(vbUserSettings.UserStorageOption StorageOption): base(StorageOption)
{}
/// <summary>
/// Loads casted object
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
/// <remarks> IMPORTANT: return value of the function should be used</remarks>
/// <example>
/// MySettings=MySettings.Load();
/// MySettings.Load();// Incorrect!!, the cast is not applied and derived class properties are not assigned
/// </example>
public MySettings Load()
{
try
{
return (MySettings)Restore();
}
catch (vbUserSettings.UserSettingsException exc) //System.IO.FileNotFoundException
{
Debug.WriteLine(exc.ToString());
//new file, ignore the error
}
return this;
}
//Derived class properties and fields
public ImportModeEnum importMode;
}