How do I supply extra info to IApplicationSettingsProvider class?

Question

Perhaps this question has been asked before in a different way, but I haven’t been able to find it.

I have one or more plugin adapter assemblies in my application all ha

Answer 1

I found an answer albeit a bit convoluted and requires going deep into the architecture of .NET, which isn't well documented. Although ApplicationSettingsBase and IApplicationSettingsProvider are decoupled, there is a bit of recoupling involved to make this work. The solution involves modifying the Settings or your own customized version like so:

[SettingsProvider(typeof(CustomSettingProviders.MySettingsProvider))]
internal sealed partial class Settings {

    public Settings(string name)
    {
         this.Context.Add("Name", name);
    }

Alternatively, you can get around making changes to this class by setting the Context before it's used like so:

        settings.Context.Add("Name", "hello");

In the settings SetPropertyValues of the MySettingsProvider, you can actually grab the data and do something with it:

    public override void SetPropertyValues(SettingsContext context, SettingsPropertyValueCollection propvals)
    {
        if (context.Contains("Name"))
            ApplicationName = context["Name"].ToString();

To use the settings, simply instantiate the class with the parametrized constructor, or alternatively set the Context before using it:

        var settings = new Properties.Settings("Hello") { Setting1 = "Hello, is anyone home!" }
        // alternative: settings.Context.Add("Name", "hello");
        settings.Save();

Answer 2

The plugins in your example would new up a PluginSettings and then call into it like this:

PluginSettings["age"] = "5";
int age;
if (int.TryParse(PluginSettings["age"], out age)
{

}
else
{
}

Code for PluginSettings:

using System.Configuration;
using System.Xml;

public sealed class PluginSettings
{
    public string this[string propertyName]
    {
        get
        {
            var store = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.PerUserRoamingAndLocal);
            UserSettingsGroup values = (UserSettingsGroup)store.SectionGroups["userSettings"];
            if (values == null)
            {
                return null;
            }
            ClientSettingsSection myValues = (ClientSettingsSection)values.Sections[typeof(DebuggerSettings).FullName];
            if (myValues == null)
            {
                return null;
            }
            SettingElement setting = myValues.Settings.Get(propertyName);
            if (setting == null)
            {
                return null;
            }
            string returnValue = setting.Value.ValueXml.InnerText;
            return returnValue;
        }
        set
        {
            var store = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.PerUserRoamingAndLocal);
            UserSettingsGroup addSectionGroup = (UserSettingsGroup)store.SectionGroups["userSettings"];
            if (addSectionGroup == null)
            {
                addSectionGroup = new UserSettingsGroup();
                store.SectionGroups.Add("userSettings",addSectionGroup);
            }
            string sectionName = (typeof(DebuggerSettings).FullName);
            ClientSettingsSection clientSettingsSection = (ClientSettingsSection)addSectionGroup.Sections[sectionName];
            if (clientSettingsSection == null)
            {
                clientSettingsSection = new ClientSettingsSection();
                clientSettingsSection.SectionInformation.AllowExeDefinition = ConfigurationAllowExeDefinition.MachineToLocalUser;
                addSectionGroup.Sections.Add(sectionName, clientSettingsSection);
            }
            SettingElement addMe = new SettingElement(propertyName, SettingsSerializeAs.String);
            XmlElement element = new XmlDocument().CreateElement("value");
            element.InnerText = value;
            addMe.Value.ValueXml = element;
            clientSettingsSection.Settings.Add(addMe);

            store.Save();
        }
    }
}

I had the same issue and blogged about it.