Winforms - reference an updatable configuration file

Question

I plan to build a WinForms application that will contain among other controls a dropdown list containing the names of the servers my team supports.

I'm looking to the future and wondering what to do if we inherit more servers.

Can I create an updatable xml file and distribute that with the app and have my teammates update it when we inherit a new server?

Should I update/rebuild/redeploy the app every time?

Answer 1

App.Config will be your friend

have a look at How to read and write settings to App.config

and also

Read/Write App.Config File with .NET

Answer 2

You can use App.Config as mentioned by astander. For our Winapps we use the appsettings part of App.Config to point to a different Configuration files like Dev, QA, Prod config files to keep the main one simple and clear.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
 <appSettings file="Development.config"></appSettings>

No. You will not need to redeploy anything. Just update the Config files and ask the users to restart their app if you add anything new to the config file while they have an active session

Answer 3

For a WinForms application, you could use a .settings file. You can then access the configuration elements using Properties namespace in your application. If you're in a Class Library project (or any other non-Forms project), you'll need to go in the project's configuration, in the settings tabl, to add the first .settings file that will allow the Properties namespace to appear for this project. For Forms project, a .settings file is automatically created in the Properties folder.

Here's the documentation about this :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730869%28VS.80%29.aspx