Does someone have an example of using a hashtable datatype in VS2005 my.settings?

In the VS settings designer, the field, ScreenLayout is defined with a datatype of hashtable.

I created a test application to do this. see the following code:

My.Settings.ScreenLayout = New Hashtable

My.Settings.ScreenLayout.Add("one", "one in hash")

My.Settings.ScreenLayout.Add("two", "two in hash")

My.Settings.ScreenLayout.Add("three", "three in hash")

My.Settings.Save()

When I run the application the first time, I can access the values from the hashtable in my.settings. Yet when run the application the second time and examine my.settings.ScreenLayout, it is set to nothing.

Could someone explain the issue to me?

TIA

You will need a type converter. See http://blogs.msdn.com/johan_stenbergs_blog/archive/2005/11/17/494163.aspx

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SvenC

Hi,

if creating a type converter is a bit too heavy yet, you might try to keep with simpler data types, which can be used without extra work. Try to start storing settings as simple string. You might as well store semi structured data as strings with some separating characters like "one#one in hash#two#two in hash" and parse that string when you retrieve it from My.Settings. Actually that is what a type converter for ToString and FromString is about: represent object state as simple string content.

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SvenC

You will need a type converter. See http://blogs.msdn.com/johan_stenbergs_blog/archive/2005/11/17/494163.aspx

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SvenC

SvenC

I am still new with .net and so Johan's blog did not help my very much (there was no explaination of the code), but thank you for trying to help.

Hi,

if creating a type converter is a bit too heavy yet, you might try to keep with simpler data types, which can be used without extra work. Try to start storing settings as simple string. You might as well store semi structured data as strings with some separating characters like "one#one in hash#two#two in hash" and parse that string when you retrieve it from My.Settings. Actually that is what a type converter for ToString and FromString is about: represent object state as simple string content.

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SvenC

SvenC,

Thank you for you help. That is what I am doing. I am now storing the settings in a string datatype. The data will be stored as XML in the my.settings.

Again, thanks!

Fidencio