c# - Best practices for storing UI settings?

Question

we're currently planning a larger WPF LoB application and i wonder what others think being the best practice for storing lots of UI settings e.g.

• Expander States
• Menu orders
• Sizing Properties
• etc...

i don't like the idea of having dozens of stored values using the delivered SettingsProvider (i.e. App.config file) although it can be used to store it in an embedded database using a custom SettingsProvider. being able to use some kind of databinding is also a concern. Has anyone had the same problems?

What did you do to store lots of ui user settings?

Answer 1

We store the preferences file here:

Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData

Store it as xml "preferences" file so it's not so hard to get to and change if it ever gets corrupted.

So far this has worked much better than the registry for us, it's cleaner and easier to blow out if anything gets corrupted or needs to be reset.