Where should a Visual Studio Add-in store its settings?

Question

Currently I\'m storing the settings for my custom addins in the registry but this seems like a kludge. I was wondering if there was an official place to store add-in settings. M

Answer 1

Here is a quick tutorial that may give you an idea of how to achieve this simply (it is quite straightforward once you have done it once).

I have derived the below code from what I use in my extensions; it is in VB.NET, but can be easily converted to C#.

To start, simply add this class to your extension project. It should contain a property for each value you need to store. You can even arrange them in categories. You may have a look at MSDN here for supported types (for more complex cases you may refer to "customized option pages", which is a topic covered by MSDN here).

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System
Imports System.Diagnostics
Imports System.Globalization
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Imports System.ComponentModel.Design
Imports Microsoft.Win32
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell
Imports System.Threading
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Imports System.ComponentModel



Public Class OptionPageGrid
    Inherits DialogPage

    Private _MyBooleanSetting As Boolean = False
    
    
    
    Public Property MyBooleanSetting() As Boolean
        Get
            Return Me._MyBooleanSetting
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Boolean)
            Me._MyBooleanSetting = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _MyIntegerSetting As Integer = 2
    
    
    
    Public Property MyIntegerSetting() As Integer
        Get
            Return Me._MyIntegerSetting
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            Me._MyIntegerSetting = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _MyStringSetting As String = "DefaultStringValue"
    
    
    
    Public Property MyStringSetting() As Integer
        Get
            Return Me._MyStringSetting
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            Me._MyStringSetting = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

Then, add the following attributes just before your master package class.

Public NotInheritable Class MyExtensionMainClass
    Inherits Package

Now to easily access the settings, you may add the following property in your master package class:

Protected ReadOnly Property Settings() As OptionPageGrid
    Get
        Return CType(GetDialogPage(GetType(OptionPageGrid)), OptionPageGrid)
    End Get
End Property

This makes it possible to access a value from anywhere in the class using a friendly:

If (Me.Settings.MyBooleanSetting) Then MsgBox("It works!");

Visual Studio will take care of persisting the settings, and they should be included when you use the import/export function (or any settings synchronization extension like this one).