Recommended way of doing user settings with WindowsAppSDK 1.0?

[fourdragons]

ApplicationSettingsBase isn't found in System.Configuration, so what is the new way of doing app and user settings with WinUI 3? Thanks!

Edit: I did find the NuGet package for using the old way. This still begs the question of is there a new way, or we just install the NuGet package and be on our merry way?

[andrewleader]

Hey @fourdragons, thanks for asking!

ApplicationSettingsBase is for WinForms apps. For WinUI 3 packaged (MSIX) apps, app and user settings should be stored using the ApplicationData class. Here's instructions on how to save and load user settings: https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/get-started/settings-learning-track

Note that those docs do say "UWP", however, those docs are applicable to any packaged (MSIX) app, like WinUI 3 packaged.

[DrusTheAxe]

But be warned, this API is very unreliable

Which API?

[riverar]

@DrusTheAxe Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current and [...].LocalSettings specifically. I strongly recommend anyone using these properties to wrap access in a try/catch and implement a backup option.

Our app's telemetry is sampled and capped (Bugsnag) but looking at the dashboard today, I'm seeing about 45.6K failures on that API in a window of 30 days.

[MolotovCherry]

For anyone coming from Google, if you use an unpackaged app, Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalSettings will not work. For unpackaged apps, I used Config.Net like so:

public interface IAppSettings : INotifyPropertyChanged {
    // your settings properties here, see Config.Net Github README
}

public static class SettingsProvider {
    public static IAppSettings Initialize() {
        var jsonPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData), "my_app_folder", "appsettings.json");

        return new ConfigurationBuilder<IAppSettings>()
           .UseJsonFile(jsonPath)
           .Build();
    }
}

Edit: Regarding below replies, to anyone reading this Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData works too

[DrusTheAxe]

ApplicationData only exists for packages. Unpackaged apps should use classic Win32 data storage options e.g. %APPDATALOCAL%\publisher\product

See #2639 for more details

[riverar]

Some additional clarity:

• Packaged applications running in AppContainer should use Windows.Storage.ApplicationData
• Packaged applications not running in AppContainer (e.g., runFullTrust) can use Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataManager or classical methods
• Unpackaged applications should stick to classical methods